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<pre>
Title: Last And First Men
Author: Olaf Stapledon
* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *
eBook No.: 0601101h.html
Edition: 1
Language: English
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Date first posted: July 2018
Date most recently updated: March 2011

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<hr>
<h1>LAST AND FIRST MEN<br>
A STORY OF THE NEAR AND FAR FUTURE</h1>
<h4>by</h4>
<h2>Olaf Stapledon</h2>
<hr>
<h2>PREFACE</h2>
<p>This is a work of fiction. I have tried to invent a story which may seem a
possible, or at least not wholly impossible, account of the future of man; and
I have tried to make that story relevant to the change that is taking place
today in man's outlook.</p>
<p>To romance of the future may seem to be indulgence in ungoverned speculation
for the sake of the marvellous. Yet controlled imagination in this sphere can
be a very valuable exercise for minds bewildered about the present and its
potentialities. Today we should welcome, and even study, every serious attempt
to envisage the future of our race; not merely in order to grasp the very
diverse and often tragic possibilities that confront us, but also that we may
familiarize ourselves with the certainty that many of our most cherished ideals
would seem puerile to more developed minds. To romance of the far future, then,
is to attempt to see the human race in its cosmic setting, and to mould our
hearts to entertain new values.</p>
<p>But if such imaginative construction of possible futures is to be at all
potent, our imagination must be strictly disciplined. We must endeavour not to
go beyond the bounds of possibility set by the particular state of culture
within which we live. The merely fantastic has only minor power. Not that we
should seek actually to prophesy what will as a matter of fact occur; for in
our present state such prophecy is certainly futile, save in the simplest
matters. We are not to set up as historians attempting to look ahead instead of
backwards. We can only select a certain thread out of the tangle of many
equally valid possibilities. But we must select with a purpose. The activity
that we are undertaking is not science, but art; and the effect that it should
have on the reader is the effect that art should have.</p>
<p>Yet our aim is not merely to create aesthetically admirable fiction. We must
achieve neither mere history, nor mere fiction, but myth. A true myth is one
which, within the universe of a certain culture (living or dead), expresses
richly, and often perhaps tragically, the highest admirations possible within
that culture. A false myth is one which either violently transgresses the
limits of credibility set by its own cultural matrix, or expresses admirations
less developed than those of its culture's best vision. This book can no more
claim to be true myth than true prophecy. But it is an essay in myth
creation.</p>
<p>The kind of future which is here imagined, should not, I think, seem wholly
fantastic, or at any rate not so fantastic as to be without significance, to
modern western individuals who are familiar with the outlines of contemporary
thought. Had I chosen matter in which there was nothing whatever of the
fantastic, its very plausibility would have rendered it unplausible. For one
thing at least is almost certain about the future, namely, that very much of it
will be such as we should call incredible. In one important respect, indeed, I
may perhaps seem to have strayed into barren extravagance. I have supposed an
inhabitant of the remote future to be communicating with us of today. I have
pretended that he has the power of partially controlling the operations of
minds now living, and that this book is the product of such influence. Yet even
this fiction is perhaps not wholly excluded by our thought. I might, of course,
easily have omitted it without more than superficial alteration of the theme.
But its introduction was more than a convenience. Only by some such radical and
bewildering device could I embody the possibility that there may be more in
time's nature than is revealed to us. Indeed, only by some such trick could I
do justice to the conviction that our whole present mentality is but a confused
and halting first experiment.</p>
<p>If ever this book should happen to be discovered by some future individual,
for instance by a member of the next generation sorting out the rubbish of his
predecessors, it will certainly raise a smile; for very much is bound to happen
of which no hint is yet discoverable. And indeed even in our generation
circumstances may well change so unexpectedly and so radically that this book
may very soon look ridiculous. But no matter. We of today must conceive our
relation to the rest of the universe as best we can; and even if our images
must seem fantastic to future men, they may none the less serve their purpose
today.</p>
<p>Some readers, taking my story to be an attempt at prophecy, may deem it
unwarrantably pessimistic. But it is not prophecy; it is myth, or an essay in
myth. We all desire the future to turn out more happily than I have figured it.
In particular we desire our present civilization to advance steadily toward
some kind of Utopia. The thought that it may decay and collapse, and that all
its spiritual treasure may be lost irrevocably, is repugnant to us. Yet this
must be faced as at least a possibility. And this kind of tragedy, the tragedy
of a race, must, I think, be admitted in any adequate myth.</p>
<p>And so, while gladly recognizing that in our time there are strong seeds of
hope as well as of despair, I have imagined for aesthetic purposes that our
race will destroy itself. There is today a very earnest movement for peace and
international unity; and surely with good fortune and intelligent management it
may triumph. Most earnestly we must hope that it will. But I have figured
things out in this book in such a manner that this great movement fails. I
suppose it incapable of preventing a succession of national wars; and I permit
it only to achieve the goal of unity and peace after the mentality of the race
has been undermined. May this not happen! May the League of Nations, or some
more strictly cosmopolitan authority, win through before it is too late! Yet
let us find room in our minds and in our hearts for the thought that the whole
enterprise of our race may be after all but a minor and unsuccessful episode in
a vaster drama, which also perhaps may be tragic.</p>
<p>Any attempt to conceive such a drama must take into account whatever
contemporary science has to say about man's own nature and his physical
environment. I have tried to supplement my own slight knowledge of natural
science by pestering my scientific friends. In particular, I have been very
greatly helped by conversation with Professors P. G. H. Boswell, J. Johnstone,
and J. Rice, of Liverpool. But they must not be held responsible for the many
deliberate extravagances which, though they serve a purpose in the design, may
jar upon the scientific ear.</p>
<p>To. Dr. L. A. Reid I am much indebted for general comments, and to Mr. E. V.
Rieu for many very valuable suggestions. To Professor and Mrs. L. C. Martin,
who read the whole book in manuscript, I cannot properly express my gratitude
for constant encouragement and criticism. To my wife's devastating sanity I owe
far more than she supposes.</p>
<p>Before closing this preface I would remind the reader that throughout the
following pages the speaker, the first person singular, is supposed to be, not
the actual writer, but an individual living in the extremely distant
future.</p>
<p>W. O. S.<br>
WEST KIRBY<br>
<i>July, 1930</i></p>
<h2>INTRODUCTION BY ONE OF THE LAST MEN</h2>
<p>This book has two authors, one contemporary with its readers, the other an
inhabitant of an age which they would call the distant future. The brain that
conceives and writes these sentences lives in the time of Einstein. Yet I, the
true inspirer of this book, I who have begotten it upon that brain, I who
influence that primitive being's conception, inhabit an age which, for
Einstein, lies in the very remote future.</p>
<p>The actual writer thinks he is merely contriving a work of fiction. Though
he seeks to tell a plausible story, he neither believes it himself, nor expects
others to believe it. Yet the story is true. A being whom you would call a
future man has seized the docile but scarcely adequate brain of your
contemporary, and is trying to direct its familiar processes for an alien
purpose. Thus a future epoch makes contact with your age. Listen patiently; for
we who are the Last Men earnestly desire to communicate with you, who are
members of the First Human Species. We can help you, and we need your help.</p>
<p>You cannot believe it. Your acquaintance with time is very imperfect, and so
your understanding of it is defeated. But no matter. Do not perplex yourselves
about this truth, so difficult to you, so familiar to us of a later aeon. Do
but entertain, merely as a fiction, the idea that the thought and will of
individuals future to you may intrude, rarely and with difficulty, into the
mental processes of some of your contemporaries. Pretend that you believe this,
and that the following chronicle is an authentic message from the Last Men.
Imagine the consequences of such a belief. Otherwise I cannot give life to the
great history which it is my task to tell.</p>
<p>When your writers romance of the future, they too easily imagine a progress
toward some kind of Utopia, in which beings like themselves live in unmitigated
bliss among circumstances perfectly suited to a fixed human nature. I shall not
describe any such paradise. Instead, I shall record huge fluctuations of joy
and woe, the results of changes not only in man's environment but in his fluid
nature. And I must tell how, in my own age, having at last achieved spiritual
maturity and the philosophic mind, man is forced by an unexpected crisis to
embark on an enterprise both repugnant and desperate.</p>
<p>I invite you, then, to travel in imagination through the aeons that lie
between your age and mine. I ask you to watch such a history of change, grief,
hope, and unforeseen catastrophe, as has nowhere else occurred, within the
girdle of the Milky Way. But first, it is well to contemplate for a few moments
the mere magnitudes of cosmical events. For, compressed as it must necessarily
be, the narrative that I have to tell may seem to present a sequence of
adventures and disasters crowded together, with no intervening peace. But in
fact man's career has been less like a mountain torrent hurtling from rock to
rock, than a great sluggish river, broken very seldom by rapids. Ages of
quiescence, often of actual stagnation, filled with the monotonous problems and
toils of countless almost identical lives, have been punctuated by rare moments
of racial adventure. Nay, even these few seemingly rapid events themselves were
in fact often long-drawn-out and tedious. They acquire a mere illusion of speed
from the speed of the narrative.</p>
<p>The receding depths of time and space, though they can indeed be haltingly
conceived even by primitive minds, cannot be imaged save by beings of a more
ample nature. A panorama of mountains appears to naive vision almost as a flat
picture, and the starry void is a roof pricked with light. Yet in reality,
while the immediate terrain could be spanned in an hour's walking, the sky-line
of peaks holds within it plain beyond plain. Similarly with time. While the
near past and the near future display within them depth beyond depth, time's
remote immensities are foreshortened into flatness. It is almost inconceivable
to simple minds that man's whole history should be but a moment in the life of
the stars, and that remote events should embrace within themselves aeon upon
aeon.</p>
<p>In your day you have learnt to calculate something of the magnitudes of time
and space. But to grasp my theme in its true proportions, it is necessary to do
more than calculate. It is necessary to brood upon these magnitudes, to draw
out the mind toward them, to feel the littleness of your here and now, and of
the moment of civilization which you call history. You cannot hope to image, as
we do, such vast proportions as one in a thousand million, because your
sense-organs, and therefore your perceptions, are too coarse-grained to
discriminate so small a fraction of their total field. But you may at least, by
mere contemplation, grasp more constantly and firmly the significance of your
calculations.</p>
<p>Men of your day, when they look back into the history of their planet,
remark not only the length of time but also the bewildering acceleration of
life's progress. Almost stationary in the earliest period of the earth's
career, in your moment it seems headlong. Mind in you, it is said, not merely
stands higher than ever before in respect of percipience, knowledge, insight,
delicacy of admiration, and sanity of will, but also it moves upward century by
century ever more swiftly. What next? Surely, you think, there will come a time
when there will be no further heights to conquer.</p>
<p>This view is mistaken. You underestimate even the foothills that stand in
front of you, and never suspect that far above them, hidden by cloud, rise
precipices and snow-fields. The mental and spiritual advances which, in your
day, mind in the solar system has still to attempt, are overwhelmingly more
complex, more precarious and dangerous, than those which have already been
achieved. And though in certain humble respects you have attained full
development, the loftier potencies of the spirit in you have not yet even begun
to put forth buds.</p>
<p>Somehow, then, I must help you to feel not only the vastness of time and
space, but also the vast diversity of mind's possible modes. But this I can
only hint to you, since so much lies wholly beyond the range of your
imagination.</p>
<p>Historians living in your day need grapple only with one moment of the flux
of time. But I have to present in one book the essence not of centuries but of
aeons. Clearly we cannot walk at leisure through such a tract, in which a
million terrestrial years are but as a year is to your historians. We must fly.
We must travel as you do in your aeroplanes, observing only the broad features
of the continent. But since the flier sees nothing of the minute inhabitants
below him, and since it is they who make history, we must also punctuate our
flight with many descents, skimming as it were over the house-tops, and even
alighting at critical points to speak face to face with individuals. And as the
plane's journey must begin with a slow ascent from the intricate pedestrian
view to wider horizons, so we must begin with a somewhat close inspection of
that little period which includes the culmination and collapse of your own
primitive civilization.</p>
<h2>THE CHRONICLE</h2>
<h3>CHAPTER I. BALKAN EUROPE</h3>
<p><b>1. THE EUROPEAN WAR AND AFTER</b></p>
<p>Observe now your own epoch of history as it appears to the Last Men.</p>
<p>Long before the human spirit awoke to clear cognizance of the world and
itself, it sometimes stirred in its sleep, opened bewildered eyes, and slept
again. One of these moments of precocious experience embraces the whole
struggle of the First Men from savagery toward civilization. Within that
moment, you stand almost in the very instant when the species attains its
zenith. Scarcely at all beyond your own day is this early culture to be seen
progressing, and already in your time the mentality of the race shows signs of
decline.</p>
<p>The first, and some would say the greatest, achievement of your own
"Western" culture was the conceiving of two ideals of conduct, both essential
to the spirit's well-being. Socrates, delighting in the truth for its own sake
and not merely for practical ends, glorified unbiased thinking, honesty of mind
and speech. Jesus, delighting in the actual human persons around him, and in
that flavour of divinity which, for him, pervaded the world, stood for
unselfish love of neighbours and of God. Socrates woke to the ideal of
dispassionate intelligence, Jesus to the ideal of passionate yet self-oblivious
worship. Socrates urged intellectual integrity, Jesus integrity of will. Each,
of course, though starting with a different emphasis, involved the other.</p>
<p>Unfortunately both these ideals demanded of the human brain a degree of
vitality and coherence of which the nervous system of the First Men was never
really capable. For many centuries these twin stars enticed the more
precociously human of human animals, in vain. And the failure to put these
ideals in practice helped to engender in the race a cynical lassitude which was
one cause of its decay.</p>
<p>There were other causes. The peoples from whom sprang Socrates and Jesus
were also among the first to conceive admiration for Fate. In Greek tragic art
and Hebrew worship of divine law, as also in the Indian resignation, man
experienced, at first very obscurely, that vision of an alien and supernal
beauty, which was to exalt and perplex him again and again throughout his whole
career. The conflict between this worship and the intransigent loyalty to Life,
embattled against Death, proved insoluble. And though few individuals were ever
clearly conscious of the issue, the first human species was again and again
unwittingly hampered in its spiritual development by this supreme
perplexity.</p>
<p>While man was being whipped and enticed by these precocious experiences, the
actual social constitution of his world kept changing so rapidly through
increased mastery over physical energy, that his primitive nature could no
longer cope with the complexity of his environment. Animals that were fashioned
for hunting and fighting in the wild were suddenly called upon to be citizens,
and moreover citizens of a world-community. At the same time they found
themselves possessed of certain very dangerous powers which their petty minds
were not fit to use. Man struggled; but, as you shall hear, he broke under the
strain.</p>
<p>The European War, called at the time the War to End War, was the first and
least destructive of those world conflicts which display so tragically the
incompetence of the First Men to control their own nature. At the outset a
tangle of motives, some honourable and some disreputable, ignited a conflict
for which both antagonists were all too well prepared, though neither seriously
intended it. A real difference of temperament between Latin France and Nordic
Germany combined with a superficial rivalry between Germany and England, and a
number of stupidly brutal gestures on the part of the German Government and
military command, to divide the world into two camps; yet in such a manner that
it is impossible to find any difference of principle between them. During the
struggle each party was convinced that it alone stood for civilization. But in
fact both succumbed now and again to impulses of sheer brutality, and both
achieved acts not merely of heroism, but of generosity unusual among the First
Men. For conduct which to clearer minds seems merely sane, was in those days to
be performed only by rare vision and self-mastery.</p>
<p>As the months of agony advanced, there was bred in the warring peoples a
genuine and even passionate will for peace and a united world. Out of the
conflict of the tribes arose, at least for a while, a spirit loftier than
tribalism. But this fervour lacked as yet clear guidance, lacked even the
courage of conviction. The peace which followed the European War is one of the
most significant moments of ancient history; for it epitomizes both the dawning
vision and the incurable blindness, both the impulse toward a higher loyalty
and the compulsive tribalism of a race which was, after all, but superficially
human.</p>
<p><b>2. THE ANGLO-FRENCH WAR</b></p>
<p>One brief but tragic incident, which occurred within a century after the
European War, may be said to have sealed the fate of the First Men. During this
century the will for peace and sanity was already becoming a serious factor in
history. Save for a number of most untoward accidents, to be recorded in due
course, the party of peace might have dominated Europe during its most
dangerous period; and, through Europe, the world. With either a little less bad
luck or a fraction more of vision and self-control at this critical time, there
might never have occurred that aeon of darkness, in which the First Men were
presently to be submerged. For had victory been gained before the general level
of mentality had seriously begun to decline, the attainment of the world state
might have been regarded, not as an end, but as the first step toward true
civilization. But this was not to be.</p>
<p>After the European War, the defeated nation, formerly no less militaristic
than the others, now became the most pacific, and a stronghold of
enlightenment. Almost everywhere, indeed, there had occurred a profound change
of heart, but chiefly in Germany. The victors on the other hand, in spite of
their real craving to be human and generous, and to found a new world, were led
partly by their own timidity, partly by their governors' blind diplomacy, into
all the vices against which they believed themselves to have been crusading.
After a brief period in which they desperately affected amity for one another
they began to indulge once more in physical conflicts. Of these conflicts, two
must be observed.</p>
<p>The first outbreak, and the less disastrous for Europe, was a short and
grotesque struggle between France and Italy. Since the fall of ancient Rome,
the Italians had excelled more in art and literature than in martial
achievement. But the heroic liberation of Italy in the nineteenth Christian
century had made Italians peculiarly sensitive to national prestige; and since
among Western peoples national vigour was measured in terms of military glory,
the Italians were fired, by their success against a rickety foreign domination,
to vindicate themselves more thoroughly against the charge of mediocrity in
warfare. After the European War, however, Italy passed through a phase of
social disorder and self-distrust. Subsequently a flamboyant but sincere
national party gained control of the State, and afforded the Italians a new
self-respect, based on reform of the social services, and on militaristic
policy. Trains became punctual, streets clean, morals puritanical. Aviation
records were won for Italy. The young, dressed up and taught to play at
soldiers with real fire-arms, were persuaded to regard themselves as saviours
of the nation, encouraged to shed blood, and used to enforce the will of the
Government. The whole movement was engineered chiefly by a man whose genius in
action combined with his rhetoric and crudity of thought to make him a very
successful dictator. Almost miraculously he drilled the Italian nation into
efficiency. At the same time, with great emotional effect and incredible lack
of humour, he trumpeted Italy's self-importance, and her will to "expand." And
since Italians were slow to learn the necessity of restricting their
population, "expansion" was a real need.</p>
<p>Thus it came about that Italy, hungry for French territory in Africa,
jealous of French leadership of the Latin races, indignant at the protection
afforded to Italian "traitors" in France, became increasingly prone to quarrel
with the most assertive of her late allies. It was a frontier incident, a
fancied "insult to the Italian flag," which at last caused an unauthorized raid
upon French territory by a small party of Italian militia. The raiders were
captured, but French blood was shed. The consequent demand for apology and
reparation was calm, but subtly offensive to Italian dignity. Italian patriots
worked themselves into short-sighted fury. The Dictator, far from daring to
apologize, was forced to require the release of the captive militia-men, and
finally to declare war. After a single sharp engagement the relentless armies
of France pressed into North Italy. Resistance, at first heroic, soon became
chaotic. In consternation the Italians woke from their dream of military glory.
The populace turned against the Dictator whom they themselves had forced to
declare war. In a theatrical but gallant attempt to dominate the Roman mob, he
failed, and was killed. The new government made a hasty peace, ceding to France
a frontier territory which she had already annexed for "security."</p>
<p>Thenceforth Italians were less concerned to outshine the glory of Garibaldi
than to emulate the greater glory of Dante, Giotto and Galileo.</p>
<p>France had now complete mastery of the continent of Europe; but having much
to lose, she behaved arrogantly and nervously. It was not long before peace was
once more disturbed.</p>
<p>Scarcely had the last veterans of the European War ceased from wearying
their juniors with reminiscence, when the long rivalry between France and
England culminated in a dispute between their respective Governments over a
case of sexual outrage said to have been committed by a French African soldier
upon an Englishwoman. In this quarrel, the British Government happened to be
definitely in the wrong, and was probably confused by its own sexual
repressions. The outrage had never been committed. The facts which gave rise to
the rumour were, that an idle and neurotic Englishwoman in the south of France,
craving the embraces of a "cave man," had seduced a Senegalese corporal in her
own apartments. When, later, he had shown signs of boredom, she took revenge by
declaring that he had attacked her indecently in the woods above the town. This
rumour was such that the English were all too prone to savour and believe. At
the same time, the magnates of the English Press could not resist this
opportunity of trading upon the public's sexuality, tribalism and
self-righteousness. There followed an epidemic of abuse, and occasional
violence, against French subjects in England; and thus the party of fear and
militarism in France was given the opportunity it had long sought. For the real
cause of this war was connected with air power. France had persuaded the League
of Nations (in one of its less intelligent moments) to restrict the size of
military aeroplanes in such a manner that, while London lay within easy
striking distance of the French coast, Paris could only with difficulty be
touched by England. This state of affairs obviously could not last long.
Britain was agitating more and more insistently for the removal of the
restriction. On the other hand, there was an increasing demand for complete
aerial disarmament in Europe; and so strong was the party of sanity in France,
that the scheme would almost certainly have been accepted by the French
Government. On both counts, therefore, the militarists of France were eager to
strike while yet there was opportunity.</p>
<p>In an instant, the whole fruit of this effort for disarmament was destroyed.
That subtle difference of mentality which had ever made it impossible for these
two nations to understand one another, was suddenly exaggerated by this
provocative incident into an apparently insoluble discord. England reverted to
her conviction that all Frenchmen were sensualists, while to France the English
appeared, as often before, the most offensive of hypocrites. In vain did the
saner minds in each country insist on the fundamental humanity of both. In
vain, did the chastened Germans seek to mediate. In vain did the League, which
by now had very great prestige and authority, threaten both parties with
expulsion, even with chastisement. Rumour got about in Paris that England,
breaking all her international pledges, was now feverishly building giant
planes which would wreck France from Calais to Marseilles. And indeed the
rumour was not wholly a slander, for when the struggle began, the British air
force was found to have a range of intensive action far wider than was
expected. Yet the actual outbreak of war took England by surprise. While the
London papers were selling out upon the news that war was declared, enemy
planes appeared over the city. In a couple of hours a third of London was in
ruins, and half her population lay poisoned in the streets. One bomb, falling
beside the British Museum, turned the whole of Bloomsbury into a crater,
wherein fragments of mummies, statues, and manuscripts were mingled with the
contents of shops, and morsels of salesmen and the intelligentsia. Thus in a
moment was destroyed a large proportion of England's most precious relics and
most fertile brains.</p>
<p>Then occurred one of those microscopic, yet supremely potent incidents which
sometimes mould the course of events for centuries. During the bombardment a
special meeting of the British Cabinet was held in a cellar in Downing Street.
The party in power at the time was progressive, mildly pacifist, and timorously
cosmopolitan. It had got itself involved in the French quarrel quite
unintentionally. At this Cabinet meeting an idealistic member urged upon his
colleagues the need for a supreme gesture of heroism and generosity on the part
of Britain. Raising his voice with difficulty above the bark of English guns
and the volcanic crash of French bombs, he suggested sending by radio the
following message: "From the people of England to the people of France.
Catastrophe has fallen on us at your hands. In this hour of agony, all hate and
anger have left us. Our eyes are opened. No longer can we think of ourselves as
English merely, and you as merely French; all of us are, before all else,
civilized beings. Do not imagine that we are defeated, and that this message is
a cry for mercy. Our armament is intact, and our resources still very great.
Yet, because of the revelation which has come to us today, we will not fight.
No plane, no ship, no soldier of Britain shall commit any further act of
hostility. Do what you will. It would be better even that a great people should
be destroyed than that the whole race should be thrown into turmoil. But you
will not strike again. As our own eyes have been opened by agony, yours now
will be opened by our act of brotherhood. The spirit of France and the spirit
of England differ. They differ deeply; but only as the eye differs from the
hand. Without you, we should be barbarians. And without us, even the bright
spirit of France would be but half expressed. For the spirit of France lives
again in our culture and in our very speech; and the spirit of England is that
which strikes from you your most distinctive brilliance."</p>
<p>At no earlier stage of man's history could such a message have been
considered seriously by any government. Had it been suggested during the
previous war, its author would have been ridiculed, execrated, perhaps even
murdered. But since those days, much had happened. Increased communication,
increased cultural intercourse, and a prolonged vigorous campaign for
cosmopolitanism, had changed the mentality of Europe. Even so, when, after a
brief discussion, the Government ordered this unique message to be sent, its
members were awed by their own act. As one of them expressed it, they were
uncertain whether it was the devil or the deity that had possessed them, but
possessed they certainly were.</p>
<p>That night the people of London (those who were left) experienced an
exaltation of spirit. Disorganization of the city's life, overwhelming physical
suffering and compassion, the consciousness of an unprecedented spiritual act
in which each individual felt himself to have somehow participated--these
influences combined to produce, even in the bustle and confusion of a wrecked
metropolis, a certain restrained fervour, and a deep peace of mind, wholly
unfamiliar to Londoners.</p>
<p>Meanwhile the undamaged North knew not whether to regard the Government's
sudden pacificism as a piece of cowardice or as a superbly courageous gesture.
Very soon, however, they began to make a virtue of necessity, and incline to
the latter view. Paris itself was divided by the message into a vocal party of
triumph and a silent party of bewilderment. But as the hours advanced, and the
former urged a policy of aggression, the latter found voice for the cry,
"<i>Viva l'Angleterre, viva l'humanit&eacute;.</i>" And so strong by now was
the will for cosmopolitanism that the upshot would almost certainly have been a
triumph of sanity, had there not occurred in England an accident which tilted
the whole precarious course of events in the opposite direction.</p>
<p>The bombardment had occurred on a Friday night. On Saturday the
repercussions of England's great message were echoing throughout the nations.
That evening, as a wet and foggy day was achieving its pallid sunset, a French
plane was seen over the western outskirts of London. It gradually descended,
and was regarded by onlookers as a messenger of peace. Lower and lower it came.
Something was seen to part from it and fall. In a few seconds an immense
explosion occurred in the neighbourhood of a great school and a royal palace.
There was hideous destruction in the school. The palace escaped. But, chief
disaster for the cause of peace, a beautiful and extravagantly popular young
princess was caught by the explosion. Her body, obscenely mutilated, but still
recognizable to every student of the illustrated papers, was impaled upon some
high park-railings beside the main thoroughfare toward the city. Immediately
after the explosion the enemy plane crashed, burst into flame, and was
destroyed with its occupants.</p>
<p>A moment's cool thinking would have convinced all onlookers that this
disaster was an accident, that the plane was a belated straggler in distress,
and no messenger of hate. But, confronted with the mangled bodies of
schoolboys, and harrowed by cries of agony and terror, the populace was in no
state for ratiocination. Moreover there was the princess, an overwhelmingly
potent sexual symbol and emblem of tribalism, slaughtered and exposed before
the eyes of her adorers.</p>
<p>The news was flashed over the country, and distorted of course in such a
manner as to admit no doubt that this act was the crowning deviltry of sexual
fiends beyond the Channel. In an hour the mood of London was changed, and the
whole population of England succumbed to a paroxysm of primitive hate far more
extravagant than any that had occurred even in the war against Germany. The
British air force, all too well equipped and prepared, was ordered to
Paris.</p>
<p>Meanwhile in France the militaristic government had fallen, and the party of
peace was now in control. While the streets were still thronged by its
vociferous supporters, the first bomb fell. By Monday morning Paris was
obliterated. There followed a few days of strife between the opposing
armaments, and of butchery committed upon the civilian populations. In spite of
French gallantry, the superior organization, mechanical efficiency, and more
cautious courage of the British Air Force soon made it impossible for a French
plane to leave the ground. But if France was broken, England was too crippled
to pursue her advantage. Every city of the two countries was completely
disorganized. Famine, riot, looting, and above all the rapidly accelerating and
quite uncontrollable spread of disease, disintegrated both States, and brought
war to a standstill.</p>
<p>Indeed, not only did hostilities cease, but also both nations were too
shattered even to continue hating one another. The energies of each were for a
while wholly occupied in trying to prevent complete annihilation by famine and
pestilence. In the work of reconstruction they had to depend very largely on
help from outside. The management of each country was taken over, for the time,
by the League of Nations.</p>
<p>It is significant to compare the mood of Europe at this time with that which
followed the European War. Formerly, though there had been a real effort toward
unity, hate and suspicion continued to find expression in national policies.
There was much wrangling about indemnities, reparations, securities; and the
division of the whole continent into two hostile camps persisted, though by
then it was purely artificial and sentimental. But after the Anglo-French war,
a very different mood prevailed. There was no mention of reparations, no
possibility of seeking security by alliances. Patriotism simply faded out, for
the time, under the influence of extreme disaster. The two enemy peoples
co-operated with the League in the work of reconstructing not only each one
itself, but each one the other. This change of heart was due partly to the
temporary collapse of the whole national organization, partly to the speedy
dominance of each nation by pacifist and anti-nationalist Labour, partly to the
fact that the League was powerful enough to inquire into and publish the whole
story of the origins of the war, and expose each combatant to itself and to the
world in a sorry light.</p>
<p>We have now observed in some detail the incident which stands out in man's
history as perhaps the most dramatic example of petty cause and mighty effect.
For consider. Through some miscalculation, or a mere defect in his instruments,
a French airman went astray, and came to grief in London after the sending of
the peace message. Had this not happened, England and France would not have
been wrecked. And, had the war been nipped at the outset, as it almost was, the
party of sanity throughout the world would have been very greatly strengthened;
the precarious will to unity would have gained the conviction which it lacked,
would have dominated man not merely during the terrified revulsion after each
spasm of national strife, but as a permanent policy based on mutual trust.
Indeed so delicately balanced were man's primitive and developed impulses at
this time, that but for this trivial accident, the movement which was started
by England's peace message might have proceeded steadily and rapidly toward the
unification of the race. It might, that is, have attained its goal, before,
instead of after, the period of mental deterioration, which in fact resulted
from a long epidemic of wars. And so the first Dark Age might never have
occurred.</p>
<p><b>3. EUROPE AFTER THE ANGLO-FRENCH WAR</b></p>
<p>A subtle change now began to affect the whole mental climate of the planet.
This is remarkable, since, viewed for instance from America or China, this war
was, after all, but a petty disturbance, scarcely more than a brawl between
quarrelsome statelets, an episode in the decline of a senile civilization.
Expressed in dollars, the damage was not impressive to the wealthy West and the
potentially wealthy East. The British Empire, indeed, that unique banyan tree
of peoples, was henceforward less effective in world diplomacy; but since the
bond that held it together was by now wholly a bond of sentiment, the Empire
was not disintegrated by the misfortune of its parent trunk. Indeed, a common
fear of American economic imperialism was already helping the colonies to
remain loyal.</p>
<p>Yet this petty brawl was in fact an irreparable and far reaching disaster.
For in spite of those differences of temperament which had forced the English
and French into conflict, they had co-operated, though often unwittingly, in
tempering and clarifying the mentality of Europe. Though their faults played a
great part in wrecking Western civilization, the virtues from which these vices
sprang were needed for the salvation of a world prone to uncritical romance. In
spite of the inveterate blindness and meanness of France in international
policy, and the even more disastrous timidity of England, their influence on
culture had been salutary, and was at this moment sorely needed. For, poles
asunder in tastes and ideals, these two peoples were yet alike in being on the
whole more sceptical, and in their finest individuals more capable of
dispassionate yet creative intelligence, than any other Western people. This
very character produced their distinctive faults, namely, in the English a
caution that amounted often to moral cowardice, and in the French a certain
myopic complacency and cunning, which masqueraded as realism. Within each
nation there was, of course, great variety. English minds were of many types.
But most were to some extent distinctively English; and hence the special
character of England's influence in the world. Relatively detached, sceptical,
cautious, practical, more tolerant than others, because more complacent and
less prone to fervour, the typical Englishman was capable both of generosity
and of spite, both of heroism and of timorous or cynical abandonment of ends
proclaimed as vital to the race. French and English alike might sin against
humanity, but in different manners. The French sinned blindly, through a
strange inability to regard France dispassionately. The English sinned through
faint-heartedness, and with open eyes. Among all nations they excelled in the
union of common sense and vision. But also among all nations they were most
ready to betray their visions in the name of common sense. Hence their
reputation for perfidy.</p>
<p>Differences of national character and patriotic sentiment were not the most
fundamental distinctions between men at this time. Although in each nation a
common tradition or cultural environment imposed a certain uniformity on all
its members, yet in each nation every mental type was present, though in
different proportions. The most significant of all cultural differences between
men, namely, the difference between the tribalists and the cosmopolitans,
traversed the national boundaries. For throughout the world something like a
new, cosmopolitan "nation" with a new all-embracing patriotism was beginning to
appear. In every land there was by now a salting of awakened minds who,
whatever their temperament and politics and formal faith, were at one in
respect of their allegiance to humanity as a race or as an adventuring spirit.
Unfortunately this new loyalty was still entangled with old prejudices. In some
minds the defence of the human spirit was sincerely identified with the defence
of a particular nation, conceived as the home of all enlightenment. In others,
social injustice kindled a militant proletarian loyalty, which, though at heart
cosmopolitan, infected alike its champions and its enemies with sectarian
passions.</p>
<p>Another sentiment, less definite and conscious than cosmopolitanism, also
played some part in the minds of men, namely loyalty toward the dispassionate
intelligence, and perplexed admiration of the world which it was beginning to
reveal, a world august, immense, subtle, in which, seemingly, man was doomed to
play a part minute but tragic. In many races there had, no doubt, long existed
some fidelity toward the dispassionate intelligence. But it was England and
France that excelled in this respect. On the other hand, even in these two
nations there was much that was opposed to this allegiance. These, like all
peoples of the age, were liable to bouts of insane emotionalism. Indeed the
French mind, in general so clear sighted, so realistic, so contemptuous of
ambiguity and mist, so detached in all its final valuations, was yet so
obsessed with the idea "France" as to be wholly incapable of generosity in
international affairs. But it was France, with England, that had chiefly
inspired the intellectual integrity which was the rarest and brightest thread
of Western culture, not only within the territories of these two nations, but
throughout Europe and America. In the seventeenth and eighteenth Christian
centuries, the French and English had conceived, more clearly than other
peoples, an interest in the objective world for its own sake, had founded
physical science, and had fashioned out of scepticism the most brilliantly
constructive of mental instruments. At a later stage it was largely the French
and English who, by means of this instrument, had revealed man and the physical
universe in something like their true proportions; and it was chiefly the elect
of these two peoples that had been able to exult in this bracing discovery.</p>
<p>With the eclipse of France and England this great tradition of dispassionate
cognizance began to wane. Europe was now led by Germany. And the Germans, in
spite of their practical genius, their scholarly contributions to history,
their brilliant science and austere philosophy, were at heart romantic. This
inclination was both their strength and their weakness. Thereby they had been
inspired to their finest art and their most profound metaphysical speculation.
But thereby they were also often rendered un-self-critical and pompous. More
eager than Western minds to solve the mystery of existence, less sceptical of
the power of human reason, and therefore more inclined to ignore or argue away
recalcitrant facts, the Germans were courageous systematizers. In this
direction they had achieved greatly. Without them, European thought would have
been chaotic. But their passion for order and for a systematic reality behind
the disorderly appearances, rendered their reasoning all too often biased. Upon
shifty foundations they balanced ingenious ladders to reach the stars. Thus,
without constant ribald criticism from across the Rhine and the North Sea, the
Teutonic soul could not achieve full self-expression. A vague uneasiness about
its own sentimentalism and lack of detachment did indeed persuade this great
people to assert its virility now and again by ludicrous acts of brutality, and
to compensate for its dream life by ceaseless hard-driven and brilliantly
successful commerce; but what was needed was a far more radical
self-criticism.</p>
<p>Beyond Germany, Russia. Here was a people whose genius needed, even more
than that of the Germans, discipline under the critical intelligence. Since the
Bolshevic revolution, there had risen in the scattered towns of this immense
tract of corn and forest, and still more in the metropolis, an original mode of
art and thought, in which were blended a passion of iconoclasm, a vivid
sensuousness, and yet also a very remarkable and essentially mystical or
intuitive power of detachment from all private cravings. America and Western
Europe were interested first in the individual human life, and only secondarily
in the social whole. For these peoples, loyalty involved a reluctant
self-sacrifice, and the ideal was ever a person, excelling in prowess of
various kinds. Society was but the necessary matrix of this jewel. But the
Russians, whether by an innate gift, or through the influence of agelong
political tyranny, religious devotion, and a truly social revolution, were
prone to self-contemptuous interest in groups, prone, indeed, to a spontaneous
worship of whatever was conceived as loftier than the individual man, whether
society, or God, or the blind forces of nature. Western Europe could reach by
way of the intellect a precise conception of man's littleness and irrelevance
when regarded as an alien among the stars; could even glimpse from this
standpoint the cosmic theme in which all human striving is but one contributory
factor. But the Russian mind, whether orthodox or Tolstoyan or fanatically
materialist, could attain much the same conviction intuitively, by direct
perception, instead of after an arduous intellectual pilgrimage; and, reaching
it, could rejoice in it. But because of this independence of intellect, the
experience was confused, erratic, frequently misinterpreted; and its effect on
conduct was rather explosive than directive. Great indeed was the need that the
West and East of Europe should strengthen and temper one another.</p>
<p>After the Bolshevic revolution a new element appeared in Russian culture,
and one which had not been known before in any modern state. The old regime was
displaced by a real proletarian government, which, though an oligarchy, and
sometimes bloody and fanatical, abolished the old tyranny of class, and
encouraged the humblest citizen to be proud of his partnership in the great
community. Still more important, the native Russian disposition not to take
material possessions very seriously co-operated with the political revolution,
and brought about such a freedom from the snobbery of wealth as was quite
foreign to the West. Attention which elsewhere was absorbed in the massing or
display of money was in Russia largely devoted either to spontaneous
instinctive enjoyments or to cultural activity.</p>
<p>In fact it was among the Russian townsfolk, less cramped by tradition than
other city-dwellers, that the spirit of the First Men was beginning to achieve
a fresh and sincere readjustment to the facts of its changing world. And from
the townsfolk something of the new way of life was spreading even to the
peasants; while in the depths of Asia a hardy and ever-growing population
looked increasingly to Russia, not only for machinery, but for ideas. There
were times when it seemed that Russia might transform the almost universal
autumn of the race into a new spring.</p>
<p>After the Bolshevic revolution the New Russia had been boycotted by the
West, and had therefore passed through a stage of self-conscious extravagance.
Communism and na&iuml;ve materialism became the dogmas of a new crusading
atheist church. All criticism was suppressed, even more rigorously than was the
opposite criticism in other countries; and Russians were taught to think of
themselves as saviours of mankind. Later, however, as economic isolation began
to hamper the Bolshevic state, the new culture was mellowed and broadened. Bit
by bit, economic intercourse with the West was restored, and with it cultural
intercourse increased. The intuitive mystical detachment of Russia began to
define itself, and so consolidate itself, in terms of the intellectual
detachment of the best thought of the West. Iconoclasm was harnessed. The life
of the senses and of impulse was tempered by a new critical movement. Fanatical
materialism, whose fire had been derived from a misinterpreted, but intense,
mystical intuition of dispassionate Reality, began to assimilate itself to the
far more rational stoicism which was the rare flower of the West. At the same
time, through intercourse with peasant culture and with the peoples of Asia,
the new Russia began to grasp in one unifying act of apprehension both the
grave disillusion of France and England and the ecstasy of the East.</p>
<p>The harmonizing of these two moods was now the chief spiritual need of
mankind. Failure to integrate them into an all-dominant sentiment could not but
lead to racial insanity. And so in due course it befell. Meanwhile this task of
integration was coming to seem more and more urgent to the best minds in
Russia, and might have been finally accomplished had they been longer illumined
by the cold light of the West.</p>
<p>But this was not to be. The intellectual confidence of France and England,
already shaken through progressive economic eclipse at the hands of America and
Germany, was now undermined. For many decades England had watched these
newcomers capture her markets. The loss had smothered her with a swarm of
domestic problems, such as could never be solved save by drastic surgery; and
this was a course which demanded more courage and energy than was possible to a
people without hope. Then came the war with France, and harrowing
disintegration. No delirium seized her, such as occurred in France; yet her
whole mentality was changed, and her sobering influence in Europe was
lessened.</p>
<p>As for France, her cultural life was now grievously reduced. It might,
indeed, have recovered from the final blow, had it not already been slowly
poisoned by gluttonous nationalism. For love of France was the undoing of the
French. They prized the truly admirable spirit of France so extravagantly, that
they regarded all other nations as barbarians.</p>
<p>Thus it befell that in Russia the doctrines of communism and materialism,
products of German systematists, survived uncriticized. On the other hand, the
practice of communism was gradually undermined. For the Russian state came
increasingly under the influence of Western, and especially American, finance.
The materialism of the official creed also became a farce, for it was foreign
to the Russian mind. Thus between practice and theory there was, in both
respects, a profound inconsistency. What was once a vital and promising culture
became insincere.</p>
<p><b>4. THE RUSSO-GERMAN WAR</b></p>
<p>The discrepancy between communist theory and individualist practice in
Russia was one cause of the next disaster which befell Europe. Between Russia
and Germany there should have been close partnership, based on interchange of
machinery and corn. But the theory of communism stood in the way, and in a
strange manner. Russian industrial organization had proved impossible without
American capital; and little by little this influence had transformed the
communistic system. From the Baltic to the Himalayas and the Behring Straits,
pasture, timber lands, machine-tilled corn-land, oil fields, and a spreading
rash of industrial towns, were increasingly dependent on American finance and
organization. Yet not America, but the far less individualistic Germany, had
become in the Russian mind the symbol of capitalism. Self-righteous hate of
Germany compensated Russia for her own betrayal of the communistic ideal. This
perverse antagonism was encouraged by the Americans; who, strong in their own
individualism and prosperity, and by now contemptuously tolerant of Russian
doctrines, were concerned only to keep Russian finance to themselves. In truth,
of course, it was America that had helped Russia's self-betrayal; and it was
the spirit of America that was most alien to the Russian spirit. But American
wealth was by now indispensable to Russia; so the hate due to America had to be
borne vicariously by Germany.</p>
<p>The Germans, for their part, were aggrieved that the Americans had ousted
them from a most profitable field of enterprise, and in particular from the
exploitation of Russian Asiatic oil. The economic life of the human race had
for some time been based on coal, but latterly oil had been found a far more
convenient source of power; and as the oil store of the planet was much smaller
than its coal store, and the expenditure of oil had of course been wholly
uncontrolled and wasteful, a shortage was already being felt. Thus the national
ownership of the remaining oil fields had become a main factor in politics and
a fertile source of wars. America, having used up most of her own supplies, was
now anxious to compete with the still prolific sources under Chinese control,
by forestalling Germany in Russia. No wonder the Germans were aggrieved. But
the fault was their own. In the days when Russian communism had been seeking to
convert the world, Germany had taken over England's leadership of
individualistic Europe. While greedy for trade with Russia, she had been at the
same time frightened of contamination by Russian social doctrine, the more so
because communism had at first made some headway among the German workers.
Later, even when sane industrial reorganization in Germany had deprived
communism of its appeal to the workers, and thus had rendered it impotent, the
habit of anti-communist vituperation persisted.</p>
<p>Thus the peace of Europe was in constant danger from the bickerings of two
peoples who differed rather in ideals than in practice. For the one, in theory
communistic, had been forced to delegate many of the community's rights to
enterprising individuals; while the other, in theory organized on a basis of
private business, was becoming ever more socialized.</p>
<p>Neither party desired war. Neither was interested in military glory, for
militarism as an end was no longer reputable. Neither was professedly
nationalistic, for nationalism, though still potent, was no longer vaunted.
Each claimed to stand for internationalism and peace, but accused the other of
narrow patriotism. Thus Europe, though more pacific than ever before, was
doomed to war.</p>
<p>Like most wars, the Anglo-French War had increased the desire for peace, yet
made peace less secure. Distrust, not merely the old distrust of nation for
nation, but a devastating distrust of human nature, gripped men like the dread
of insanity. Individuals who thought of themselves as wholehearted Europeans,
feared that at any moment they might succumb to some ridiculous epidemic of
patriotism and participate in the further crippling of Europe.</p>
<p>This dread was one cause of the formation of a European Confederacy, in
which all the nations of Europe, save Russia, surrendered their sovereignty to
a common authority and actually pooled their armaments. Ostensibly the motive
of this act was peace; but America interpreted it as directed against herself,
and withdrew from the League of Nations. China, the "natural enemy" of America,
remained within the League, hoping to use it against her rival.</p>
<p>From without, indeed, the Confederacy at first appeared as a close-knit
whole; but from within it was known to be insecure, and in every serious crisis
it broke. There is no need to follow the many minor wars of this period, though
their cumulative effect was serious, both economically and psychologically.
Europe did at last, however, become something like a single nation in
sentiment, though this unity was brought about less by a common loyalty than by
a common fear of America.</p>
<p>Final consolidation was the fruit of the Russo-German War, the cause of
which was partly economic and partly sentimental. All the peoples of Europe had
long watched with horror the financial conquest of Russia by the United States,
and they dreaded that they also must presently succumb to the same tyrant. To
attack Russia, it was thought, would be to wound America in her only vulnerable
spot. But the actual occasion of the war was sentimental. Half a century after
the Anglo-French War, a second-rate German author published a typically German
book of the baser sort. For as each nation had its characteristic virtues, so
also each was prone to characteristic follies. This book was one of those
brilliant but extravagant works in which the whole diversity of existence is
interpreted under a single formula, with extreme detail and plausibility, yet
with amazing <i>na&iuml;vet&eacute;</i>. Highly astute within its own
artificial universe, it was none the less in wider regard quite uncritical. In
two large volumes the author claimed that the cosmos was a dualism in which a
heroic and obviously Nordic spirit ruled by divine right over an
un-self-disciplined, yet servile and obviously Slavonic spirit. The whole of
history, and of evolution, was interpreted on this principle; and of the
contemporary world it was said that the Slavonic element was poisoning Europe.
One phrase in particular caused fury in Moscow, "the anthropoid face of the
Russian sub-man."</p>
<p>Moscow demanded apology and suppression of the book. Berlin regretted the
insult, but with its tongue in its cheek; and insisted on the freedom of the
press. Followed a crescendo of radio hate, and war.</p>
<p>The details of this war do not matter to one intent upon the history of mind
in the Solar System, but its result was important. Moscow, Leningrad and Berlin
were shattered from the air. The whole West of Russia was flooded with the
latest and deadliest poison gas, so that, not only was all animal and vegetable
life destroyed, but also the soil between the Black Sea and the Baltic was
rendered infertile and uninhabitable for many years. Within a week the war was
over, for the reason that the combatants were separated by an immense territory
in which life could not exist. But the effects of the war were lasting. The
Germans had set going a process which they could not stop. Whiffs of the poison
continued to be blown by fickle winds into every country of Europe and Western
Asia. It was spring-time; but save in the Atlantic coast-lands the spring
flowers shrivelled in the bud, and every young leaf had a withered rim.
Humanity also suffered; though, save in the regions near the seat of war, it
was in general only the children and the old people who suffered greatly. The
poison spread across the Continent in huge blown tresses, broad as
principalities, swinging with each change of wind. And wherever it strayed,
young eyes, throats, and lungs were blighted like the leaves.</p>
<p>America, after much debate, had at last decided to defend her interests in
Russia by a punitive expedition against Europe. China began to mobilize her
forces. But long before America was ready to strike, news of the widespread
poisoning changed her policy. Instead of punishment, help was given. This was a
fine gesture of goodwill. But also, as was observed in Europe, instead of being
costly, it was profitable; for inevitably it brought more of Europe under
American financial control.</p>
<p>The upshot of the Russo-German war, then, was that Europe was unified in
sentiment by hatred of America, and that European mentality definitely
deteriorated. This was due in part to the emotional influence of the war
itself, partly to the socially damaging effects of the poison. A proportion of
the rising generation had been rendered sickly for life. During the thirty
years which intervened before the Euro-American war, Europe was burdened with
an exceptional weight of invalids. First-class intelligence was on the whole
rarer than before, and was more strictly concentrated on the practical work of
reconstruction.</p>
<p>Even more disastrous for the human race was the fact that the recent Russian
cultural enterprise of harmonizing Western intellectualism and Eastern
mysticism was now wrecked.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER II. EUROPE'S DOWNFALL</h3>
<p><b>1. EUROPE AND AMERICA</b></p>
<p>Over the heads of the European tribes two mightier peoples regarded each
other with increasing dislike. Well might they; for the one cherished the most
ancient and refined of all surviving cultures, while the other, youngest and
most self-confident of the great nations, proclaimed her novel spirit as the
spirit of the future.</p>
<p>In the Far East, China, already half American, though largely Russian and
wholly Eastern, patiently improved her rice lands, pushed forward her railways,
organized her industries, and spoke fair to all the world. Long ago, during her
attainment of unity and independence, China had learnt much from militant
Bolshevism. And after the collapse of the Russian state it was in the East that
Russian culture continued to live. Its mysticism influenced India. Its social
ideal influenced China. Not indeed that China took over the theory, still less
the practice, of communism; but she learnt to entrust herself increasingly to a
vigorous, devoted and despotic party, and to feel in terms of the social whole
rather than individualistically. Yet she was honeycombed with individualism,
and in spite of her rulers she had precipitated a submerged and desperate class
of wage slaves.</p>
<p>In the Far West, the United States of America openly claimed to be
custodians of the whole planet. Universally feared and envied, universally
respected for their enterprise, yet for their complacency very widely despised,
the Americans were rapidly changing the whole character of man's existence. By
this time every human being throughout the planet made use of American
products, and there was no region where American capital did not support local
labour. Moreover the American press, gramophone, radio, cinematograph and
televisor ceaselessly drenched the planet with American thought. Year by year
the aether reverberated with echoes of New York's pleasures and the religious
fervours of the Middle West. What wonder, then, that America, even while she
was despised, irresistibly moulded the whole human race. This, perhaps, would
not have mattered, had America been able to give of her very rare best. But
inevitably only her worst could be propagated. Only the most vulgar traits of
that potentially great people could get through into the minds of foreigners by
means of these crude instruments. And so, by the floods of poison issuing from
this people's baser members, the whole world, and with it the nobler parts of
America herself, were irrevocably corrupted.</p>
<p>For the best of America was too weak to withstand the worst. Americans had
indeed contributed amply to human thought. They had helped to emancipate
philosophy from ancient fetters. They had served science by lavish and rigorous
research. In astronomy, favoured by their costly instruments and clear
atmosphere, they had done much to reveal the dispositions of the stars and
galaxies. In literature, though often they behaved as barbarians, they had also
conceived new modes of expression, and moods of thought not easily appreciated
in Europe. They had also created a new and brilliant architecture. And their
genius for organization worked upon a scale that was scarcely conceivable, let
alone practicable, to other peoples. In fact their best minds faced old
problems of theory and of valuation with a fresh innocence and courage, so that
fogs of superstition were cleared away wherever these choice Americans were
present. But these best were after all a minority in a huge wilderness of
opinionated self-deceivers, in whom, surprisingly, an outworn religious dogma
was championed with the intolerant optimism of youth. For this was essentially
a race of bright, but arrested, adolescents. Something lacked which should have
enabled them to grow up. One who looks back across the aeons to this remote
people can see their fate already woven of their circumstance and their
disposition, and can appreciate the grim jest that these, who seemed to
themselves gifted to rejuvenate the planet, should have plunged it, inevitably,
through spiritual desolation into senility and age-long night.</p>
<p>Inevitably. Yet here was a people of unique promise, gifted innately beyond
all other peoples. Here was a race brewed of all the races, and mentally more
effervescent than any. Here were intermingled Anglo-Saxon stubbornness,
Teutonic genius for detail and systematization, Italian gaiety, the intense
fire of Spain, and the more mobile Celtic flame. Here also was the sensitive
and stormy Slav, a youth-giving Negroid infusion, a faint but subtly
stimulating trace of the Red Man, and in the West a sprinkling of the Mongol.
Mutual intolerance no doubt isolated these diverse stocks to some degree; yet
the whole was increasingly one people, proud of its individuality, of its
success, of its idealistic mission in the world, proud also of its optimistic
and anthropocentric view of the universe. What might not this energy have
achieved, had it been more critically controlled, had it been forced to attend
to life's more forbidding aspects! Direct tragic experience might perhaps have
opened the hearts of this people. Intercourse with a more mature culture might
have refined their intelligence. But the very success which had intoxicated
them rendered them also too complacent to learn from less prosperous
competitors.</p>
<p>Yet there was a moment when this insularity promised to wane. So long as
England was a serious economic rival, America inevitably regarded her with
suspicion. But when England was seen to be definitely in economic decline, yet
culturally still at her zenith, America conceived a more generous interest in
the last and severest phase of English thought. Eminent Americans themselves
began to whisper that perhaps their unrivalled prosperity was not after all
good evidence either of their own spiritual greatness or of the moral rectitude
of the universe. A minute but persistent school of writers began to affirm that
America lacked self-criticism, was incapable of seeing the joke against
herself, was in fact wholly devoid of that detachment and resignation which was
the finest, though of course the rarest, mood of latter-day England. This
movement might well have infused throughout the American people that which was
needed to temper their barbarian egotism, and open their ears once more to the
silence beyond man's strident sphere. Once more, for only latterly had they
been seriously deafened by the din of their own material success. And indeed,
scattered over the continent throughout this whole period, many shrinking
islands of true culture contrived to keep their heads above the rising tide of
vulgarity and superstition. These it was that had looked to Europe for help,
and were attempting a rally when England and France blundered into that orgy of
emotionalism and murder which exterminated so many of their best minds and
permanently weakened their cultural influence.</p>
<p>Subsequently it was Germany that spoke for Europe. And Germany was too
serious an economic rival for America to be open to her influence. Moreover
German criticism, though often emphatic, was too heavily pedantic, too little
ironical, to pierce the hide of American complacency. Thus it was that America
sank further and further into Americanism. Vast wealth and industry, and also
brilliant invention, were concentrated upon puerile ends. In particular the
whole of American life was organized around the cult of the powerful
individual, that phantom ideal which Europe herself had only begun to outgrow
in her last phase. Those Americans who wholly failed to realize this ideal, who
remained at the bottom of the social ladder, either consoled themselves with
hopes for the future, or stole symbolical satisfaction by identifying
themselves with some popular star, or gloated upon their American citizenship,
and applauded the arrogant foreign policy of their government. Those who
achieved power were satisfied so long as they could merely retain it, and
advertise it uncritically in the conventionally self-assertive manners.</p>
<p>It was almost inevitable that when Europe had recovered from the
Russo-German disaster she should come to blows with America; for she had long
chafed under the saddle of American finance, and the daily life of Europeans
had become more and more cramped by the presence of a widespread and
contemptuous foreign "aristocracy" of American business men. Germany alone was
comparatively free from this domination, for Germany was herself still a great
economic power. But in Germany, no less than elsewhere, there was constant
friction with the Americans.</p>
<p>Of course neither Europe nor America desired war. Each was well aware that
war would mean the end of business prosperity, and for Europe very possibly the
end of all things; for it was known that man's power of destruction had
recently increased, and that if war were waged relentlessly, the stronger side
might exterminate the other. But inevitably an "incident" at last occurred
which roused blind rage on each side of the Atlantic. A murder in South Italy,
a few ill-considered remarks in the European Press, offensive retaliation in
the American Press accompanied by the lynching of an Italian in the Middle
West, an uncontrollable massacre of American citizens in Rome, the dispatch of
an American air fleet to occupy Italy, interception by the European air fleet,
and war was in existence before ever it had been declared. This aerial action
resulted, perhaps unfortunately for Europe, in a momentary check to the
American advance. The enemy was put on his mettle, and prepared a crushing
blow.</p>
<p><b>2. THE ORIGINS OF A MYSTERY</b></p>
<p>While the Americans were mobilizing their whole armament, there occurred the
really interesting event of the war. It so happened that an international
society of scientific workers was meeting in England at Plymouth, and a young
Chinese physicist had expressed his desire to make a report to a select
committee. As he had been experimenting to find means for the utilization of
subatomic energy by the annihilation of matter, it was with some excitement
that, according to instruction, the forty international representatives
travelled to the north coast of Devon and met upon the bare headland called
Hartland Point.</p>
<p>It was a bright morning after rain. Eleven miles to the north-west, the
cliffs of Lundy Island displayed their markings with unusual detail. Sea-birds
wheeled about the heads of the party as they seated themselves on their
raincoats in a cluster upon the rabbit-cropped turf.</p>
<p>They were a remarkable company, each one of them a unique person, yet
characterized to some extent by his particular national type. And all were
distinctively "scientists" of the period. Formerly this would have implied a
rather uncritical leaning toward materialism, and an affectation of cynicism;
but by now it was fashionable to profess an equally uncritical belief that all
natural phenomena were manifestations of the cosmic mind. In both periods, when
a man passed beyond the sphere of his own serious scientific work he chose his
beliefs irresponsibly, according to his taste, much as he chose his recreation
or his food.</p>
<p>Of the individuals present we may single out one or two for notice. The
German, an anthropologist, and a product of the long-established cult of
physical and mental health, sought to display in his own athletic person the
characters proper to Nordic man. The Frenchman, an old but still sparkling
psychologist, whose queer hobby was the collecting of weapons, ancient and
modern, regarded the proceedings with kindly cynicism. The Englishman, one of
the few remaining intellectuals of his race, compensated for the severe study
of physics by a scarcely less devoted research into the history of English
expletives and slang, delighting to treat his colleagues to the fruits of his
toil. The West African president of the Society was a biologist, famous for his
interbreeding of man and ape.</p>
<p>When all were settled, the President explained the purpose of the meeting.
The utilization of subatomic energy had indeed been achieved, and they were to
be given a demonstration.</p>
<p>The young Mongol stood up, and produced from a case an instrument rather
like the old-fashioned rifle. Displaying this object, he spoke as follows, with
that quaintly stilted formality which had once been characteristic of all
educated Chinese: "Before describing the details of my rather delicate process,
I will illustrate its importance by showing what can be done with the finished
product. Not only can I initiate the annihilation of matter, but also I can do
so at a distance and in a precise direction. Moreover, I can inhibit the
process. As a means of destruction, my instrument is perfect. As a source of
power for the constructive work of mankind, it has unlimited potentiality.
Gentlemen, this is a great moment in the history of Man. I am about to render
into the hands of organized intelligence the means to stop for ever man's
internecine brawls. Henceforth this great Society, of which you are the
<i>elite</i>, will beneficently rule the planet. With this little instrument
you will stop the ridiculous war; and with another, which I shall soon perfect,
you will dispense unlimited industrial power wherever you consider it needed.
Gentlemen, with the aid of this handy instrument which I have the honour to
demonstrate, you are able to become absolute masters of this planet."</p>
<p>Here the representative of England muttered an archaism whose significance
was known only to himself, "Gawd 'elp us!" In the minds of some of those
foreigners who were not physicists this quaint expression was taken to be a
technical word having some connexion with the new source of energy.</p>
<p>The Mongol continued. Turning towards Lundy, he said, "That island is no
longer inhabited, and as it is something of a danger to shipping, I will remove
it." So saying he aimed his instrument at the distant cliff, but continued
speaking. "This trigger will stimulate the ultimate positive and negative
charges which constitute the atoms at a certain point on the rock face to
annihilate each other. These stimulated atoms will infect their neighbours, and
so on indefinitely. This second trigger, however, will stop the actual
annihilation. Were I to refrain from using it, the process would indeed
continue indefinitely, perhaps until the whole of the planet had
disintegrated."</p>
<p>There was an anxious movement among the spectators, but the young man took
careful aim, and pressed the two triggers in quick succession. No sound from
the instrument. No visible effect upon the smiling face of the island. Laughter
began to gurgle from the Englishman, but ceased. For a dazzling point of light
appeared on the remote cliff. It increased in size and brilliance, till all
eyes were blinded in the effort to continue watching. It lit up the under parts
of the clouds and blotted out the sun-cast shadows of gorse bushes beside the
spectators. The whole end of the island facing the mainland was now an
intolerable scorching sun. Presently, however, its fury was veiled in clouds of
steam from the boiling sea. Then suddenly the whole island, three miles of
solid granite, leaped asunder; so that a covey of great rocks soared
heavenward, and beneath them swelled more slowly a gigantic mushroom of steam
and debris. Then the sound arrived. All hands were clapped to ears, while eyes
still strained to watch the bay, pocked white with the hail of rocks. Meanwhile
a great wall of sea advanced from the centre of turmoil. This was seen to
engulf a coasting vessel, and pass on toward Bideford and Barnstaple.</p>
<p>The spectators leaped to their feet and clamoured, while the young author of
this fury watched the spectacle with exultation, and some surprise at the
magnitude of these mere after-effects of his process.</p>
<p>The meeting was now adjourned to a neighbouring chapel to hear the report of
the research. As the representatives were filing through the door it was
observed that the steam and smoke had cleared, and that open sea extended where
had been Lundy. Within the chapel, the great Bible was decorously removed and
the windows thrown open, to dispel somewhat the odour of sanctity. For though
the early and spiritistic interpretations of relativity and the quantum theory
had by now accustomed men of science to pay their respects to the religions,
many of them were still liable to a certain asphyxia when they were actually
within the precincts of sanctity. When the scientists had settled themselves
upon the archaic and unyielding benches, the President explained that the
chapel authorities had kindly permitted this meeting because they realized
that, since men of science had gradually discovered the spiritual foundation of
physics, science and religion must henceforth be close allies. Moreover the
purpose of this meeting was to discuss one of those supreme mysteries which it
was the glory of science to discover and religion to transfigure. The President
then complimented the young dispenser of power upon his triumph, and called
upon him to address the meeting.</p>
<p>At this point, however, the aged representative of France intervened, and
was granted a hearing. Born almost a hundred and forty years earlier, and
preserved more by native intensity of spirit than by the artifices of the
regenerator, this ancient seemed to speak out of a remote and wiser epoch. For
in a declining civilization it is often the old who see furthest and see with
youngest eyes. He concluded a rather long, rhetorical, yet closely reasoned
speech as follows: "No doubt we are the intelligence of the planet; and because
of our consecration to our calling, no doubt we are comparatively honest. But
alas, even we are human. We make little mistakes now and then, and commit
little indiscretions. The possession of such power as is offered us would not
bring peace. On the contrary it would perpetuate our national hates. It would
throw the world into confusion. It would undermine our own integrity, and turn
us into tyrants. Moreover it would ruin science. And,--well, when at last
through some little error the world got blown up, the disaster would not be
regrettable. I know that Europe is almost certainly about to be destroyed by
those vigorous but rather spoilt children across the Atlantic. But distressing
as this must be, the alternative is far worse. No, Sir! Your very wonderful toy
would be a gift fit for developed minds; but for us, who are still
barbarians,--no, it must not be. And so, with deep regret I beg you to destroy
your handiwork, and, if it were possible, your memory of your marvellous
research. But above all breathe no word of your process to us, or to any
man."</p>
<p>The German then protested that to refuse would be cowardly. He briefly
described his vision of a world organized under organized science, and inspired
by a scientifically organized religious dogma. "Surely," he said, "to refuse
were to refuse the gift of God, of that God whose presence in the humblest
quantum we have so recently and so surprisingly revealed." Other speakers
followed, for and against; but it soon grew clear that wisdom would prevail.
Men of science were by now definitely cosmopolitan in sentiment. Indeed so far
were they from nationalism, that on this occasion the representative of America
had urged acceptance of the weapon, although it would be used against his own
countrymen.</p>
<p>Finally, however, and actually by a unanimous vote, the meeting, while
recording its deep respect for the Chinese scientist, requested, nay ordered,
that the instrument and all account of it should be destroyed.</p>
<p>The young man rose, drew his handiwork from its case, and fingered it. So
long did he remain thus standing in silence with eyes fixed on the instrument,
that the meeting became restless. At last, however, he spoke. "I shall abide by
the decision of the meeting. Well, it is hard to destroy the fruit of ten
years' work, and such fruit, too. I expected to have the gratitude of mankind;
but instead I am an outcast." Once more he paused. Gazing out of the window, he
now drew from his pocket a field-glass, and studied the western sky. "Yes, they
are American. Gentlemen, the American air fleet approaches."</p>
<p>The company leapt to its feet and crowded to the windows. High in the west a
sparse line of dots stretched indefinitely into the north and the south. Said
the Englishman, "For God's sake use your damned tool once more, or England's
done. They must have smashed our fellows over the Atlantic."</p>
<p>The Chinese scientist turned his eyes on the President. There was a general
cry of "Stop them." Only the Frenchman protested. The representative of the
United States raised his voice and said, "They are my people, I have friends up
there in the sky. My own boy is probably there. But they're mad. They want to
do something hideous. They're in the lynching mood. Stop them." The Mongol
still gazed at the President, who nodded. The Frenchman broke down in senile
tears. Then the young man, leaning upon the window sill, took careful aim at
each black dot in turn. One by one, each became a blinding star, then vanished.
In the chapel, a long silence. Then whispers; and glances at the Chinaman,
expressive of anxiety and dislike.</p>
<p>There followed a hurried ceremony in a neighbouring field. A fire was lit.
The instrument and the no less murderous manuscript were burnt. And then the
grave young Mongol, having insisted on shaking hands all round, said, "With my
secret alive in me, I must not live. Some day a more worthy race will
re-discover it, but today I am a danger to the planet. And so I, who have
foolishly ignored that I live among savages, help myself now by the ancient
wisdom to pass hence." So saying, he fell dead.</p>
<p><b>3. EUROPE MURDERED</b></p>
<p>Rumour spread by voice and radio throughout the world. An island had been
mysteriously exploded. The American fleet had been mysteriously annihilated in
the air. And in the neighbourhood where these events had occurred,
distinguished scientists were gathered in conference. The European Government
sought out the unknown saviour of Europe, to thank him, and secure his process
for their own use. The President of the scientific society gave an account of
the meeting and the unanimous vote. He and his colleagues were promptly
arrested, and "pressure," first moral and then physical, was brought to bear on
them to make them disclose the secret; for the world was convinced that they
really knew it, and were holding it back for their own purposes.</p>
<p>Meanwhile it was learned that the American air commander, after he had
defeated the European fleet, had been instructed merely to "demonstrate" above
England while peace was negotiated. For in America, big business had threatened
the government with boycott if unnecessary violence were committed in Europe.
Big business was by now very largely international in sentiment, and it was
realized that the destruction of Europe would inevitably unhinge American
finance. But the unprecedented disaster to the victorious fleet roused the
Americans to blind hate, and the peace party was submerged. Thus it turned out
that the Chinaman's one hostile act had not saved England, but doomed her.</p>
<p>For some days Europeans lived in panic dread, knowing not what horror might
at any moment descend on them. No wonder, then, that the Government resorted to
torture in order to extract the secret from the scientists. No wonder that out
of the forty individuals concerned, one, the Englishman, saved himself by
deceit. He promised to do his best to "remember" the intricate process. Under
strict supervision, he used his own knowledge of physics to experiment in
search of the Chinaman's trick. Fortunately, however, he was on the wrong
scent. And indeed he knew it. For though his first motive was mere
self-preservation, later he conceived the policy of indefinitely preventing the
dangerous discovery by directing research along a blind alley. And so his
treason, by seeming to give the authority of a most eminent physicist to a
wholly barren line of research, saved this undisciplined and scarcely human
race from destroying its planet.</p>
<p>The American people, sometimes tender even to excess, were now collectively
insane with hate of the English and of all Europeans. With cold efficiency they
flooded Europe with the latest and deadliest of gasses, till all the peoples
were poisoned in their cities like rats in their holes. The gas employed was
such that its potency would cease within three days. It was therefore possible
for an American sanitary force to take charge of each metropolis within a week
after the attack. Of those who first descended into the great silence of the
murdered cities, many were unhinged by the overwhelming presence of dead
populations. The gas had operated first upon the ground level, but, rising like
a tide, it had engulfed the top stories, the spires, the hills. Thus, while in
the streets lay thousands who had been overcome by the first wave of poison,
every roof and pinnacle bore the bodies of those who had struggled upwards in
the vain hope of escaping beyond the highest reach of the tide. When the
invaders arrived they beheld on every height prostrate and contorted
figures.</p>
<p>Thus Europe died. All centres of intellectual life were blotted out, and of
the agricultural regions only the uplands and mountains were untouched. The
spirit of Europe lived henceforth only in a piece-meal and dislocated manner in
the minds of Americans, Chinese, Indians, and the rest.</p>
<p>There were indeed the British Colonies, but they were by now far less
European than American. The war had, of course, disintegrated the British
Empire. Canada sided with the United States. South Africa and India declared
their neutrality at the outbreak of war. Australia, not through cowardice, but
through conflict of loyalties, was soon reduced to neutrality. The New
Zealanders took to their mountains and maintained an insane but heroic
resistance for a year. A simple and gallant folk, they had almost no conception
of the European spirit, yet obscurely and in spite of their Americanization
they were loyal to it, or at least to that symbol of one aspect of Europeanism,
"England." Indeed so extravagantly loyal were they, or so innately dogged and
opinionated, that when further resistance became impossible, many of them, both
men and women, killed themselves rather than submit.</p>
<p>But the most lasting agony of this war was suffered, not by the defeated,
but by the victors. For when their passion had cooled the Americans could not
easily disguise from themselves that they had committed murder. They were not
at heart a brutal folk, but rather a kindly. They liked to think of the world
as a place of innocent pleasure-seeking, and of themselves as the main
purveyors of delight. Yet they had been somehow drawn into this fantastic
crime; and henceforth an all-pervading sense of collective guilt warped the
American mind. They had ever been vainglorious and intolerant; but now these
qualities in them became extravagant even to insanity. Both as individuals and
collectively, they became increasingly frightened of criticism, increasingly
prone to blame and hate, increasingly self-righteous, increasingly hostile to
the critical intelligence, increasingly superstitious.</p>
<p>Thus was this once noble people singled out by the gods to be cursed, and
the minister of curses.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER III. AMERICA AND CHINA</h3>
<p><b>1. THE RIVALS</b></p>
<p>After the eclipse of Europe, the allegiance of men gradually crystallized
into two great national or racial sentiments, the American and the Chinese.
Little by little all other patriotisms became mere local variants of one or
other of these two major loyalties. At first, indeed, there were many
internecine conflicts. A detailed history of this period would describe how
North America, repeating the welding process of the ancient "American Civil
War," incorporated within itself the already Americanized Latins of South
America; and how Japan, once the bully of young China, was so crippled by
social revolutions that she fell a prey to American Imperialism; and how this
bondage turned her violently Chinese in sentiment, so that finally she freed
herself by an heroic war of independence, and joined the Asiatic Confederacy,
under Chinese leadership.</p>
<p>A full history would also tell of the vicissitudes of the League of Nations.
Although never a cosmopolitan government, but an association of national
governments, each concerned mainly for its own sovereignty, this great
organization had gradually gained a very real prestige and authority over all
its members. And in spite of its many short-comings, most of which were
involved in its fundamental constitution, it was invaluable as the great
concrete focusing point of the growing loyalty toward humanity. At first its
existence had been precarious; and indeed it had only preserved itself by an
extreme caution, amounting almost to servility toward the "great powers."
Little by little, however, it had gained moral authority to such an extent that
no single power, even the mightiest, dared openly and in cold blood either to
disobey the will of the League or reject the findings of the High Court. But,
since human loyalty was still in the main national rather than cosmopolitan,
situations were all too frequent in which a nation would lose its head, run
amok, throw its pledges to the winds, and plunge into fear-inspired aggression.
Such a situation had produced the Anglo-French War. At other times the nations
would burst apart into two great camps, and the League would be temporarily
forgotten in their disunion. This happened in the Russo-German War, which was
possible only because America favoured Russia, and China favoured Germany.
After the destruction of Europe, the world had for a while consisted of the
League on one side and America on the other. But the League was dominated by
China, and no longer stood for cosmopolitanism. This being so, those whose
loyalty was genuinely human worked hard to bring America once more into the
fold, and at last succeeded.</p>
<p>In spite of the League's failure to prevent the "great" wars, it worked
admirably in preventing all the minor conflicts which had once been a chronic
disease of the race. Latterly, indeed, the world's peace was absolutely secure,
save when the League itself was almost equally divided. Unfortunately, with the
rise of America and China, this kind of situation became more and more common.
During the war of North and South America an attempt was made to re-create the
League as a Cosmopolitan Sovereignty, controlling the pooled armaments of all
nations. But, though the cosmopolitan will was strong, tribalism was stronger.
The upshot was that, over the Japanese question, the League definitely split
into two Leagues, each claiming to inherit universal sovereignty from the old
League, but each in reality dominated by a kind of supernational sentiment, the
one American, the other Chinese.</p>
<p>This occurred within a century after the eclipse of Europe. The second
century completed the process of crystallization into two systems, political
and mental. On the one hand was the wealthy and close-knit American Continental
Federation, with its poor relations, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the
bedridden remains of Western Europe, and part of the soulless body that was
Russia. On the other hand were Asia and Africa. In fact the ancient distinction
between East and West had now become the basis of political sentiment and
organization.</p>
<p>Within each system there were of course real differences of culture, of
which the chief was the difference between the Chinese and Indian mentalities.
The Chinese were interested in appearances, in the sensory, the urbane, the
practical; while the Indians inclined to seek behind appearances for some
ultimate reality, of which this life, they said, was but a passing aspect. Thus
the average Indian never took to heart the practical social problem in all its
seriousness. The ideal of perfecting this world was never an all-absorbing
interest to him; since he had been taught to believe that this world was mere
shadow. There was, indeed, a time when China had mentally less in common with
India than with the West, but fear of America had drawn the two great Eastern
peoples together. They agreed at least in earnest hate of that strange blend of
the commercial traveller, the missionary, and the barbarian conqueror, which
was the American abroad.</p>
<p>China, owing to her relative weakness and irritation caused by the tentacles
of American industry within her, was at this time more nationalistic than her
rival, America. Indeed, professed to have outgrown nationalism, and to stand
for political and cultural world unity. But she conceived this unity as a Unity
under American organization; and by culture she meant Americanism. This kind of
cosmopolitanism was regarded by Asia and Africa without sympathy. In China a
concerted effort had been made to purge the foreign element from her culture.
Its success, however, was only superficial. Pigtails and chopsticks had once
more come into vogue among the leisured, and the study of Chinese classics was
once more compulsory in all schools. Yet the manner of life of the average man
remained American. Not only did he use American cutlery, shoes, gramophones,
domestic labour-saving devices, but also his alphabet was European, his
vocabulary was permeated by American slang, his newspapers and radio were
American in manner, though anti-American in politics. He saw daily in his
domestic television screen every phase of American private life and every
American public event. Instead of opium and joss sticks, he affected cigarettes
and chewing gum.</p>
<p>His thought also was largely a Mongolian variant of American thought. For
instance, since his was a non-metaphysical mind, but since also some kind of
metaphysics is unavoidable, he accepted the na&iuml;vely materialistic
metaphysics which had been popularized by the earliest Behaviourists. In this
view the only reality was physical energy, and the mind was but the system of
the body's movements in response to stimulus. Behaviourism had formerly played
a great part in purging the best Western minds of superstition; and indeed at
one time it was the chief growing point of thought.</p>
<p>This early, pregnant, though extravagant, doctrine it was that had been
absorbed by China. But in its native land Behaviorism had gradually been
infected by the popular demand for comfortable ideas, and had finally changed
into a curious kind of spiritism, according to which, though the ultimate
reality was indeed physical energy, this energy was identified with the divine
spirit. The most dramatic feature of American thought in this period was the
merging of Behaviorism and Fundamentalism, a belated and degenerate mode of
Christianity. Behaviourism itself, indeed, had been originally a kind of
inverted Puritan faith, according to which intellectual salvation involved
acceptance of a crude materialistic dogma, chiefly because it was repugnant to
the self-righteous, and unintelligible to intellectuals of the earlier schools.
The older Puritans trampled down all fleshy impulses; these newer Puritans
trampled no less self-righteously upon the spiritual cravings. But in the
increasingly spiritistic inclination of physics itself, Behaviorism and
Fundamentalism had found a meeting place. Since the ultimate stuff of the
physical universe was now said to be multitudinous and arbitrary "quanta" of
the activity of "spirits," how easy was it for the materialistic and the
spiritistic to agree! At heart, indeed, they were never far apart in mood,
though opposed in doctrine. The real cleavage was between the truly spiritual
view on the one hand, and the spiritistic and materialistic on the other. Thus
the most materialistic of Christian sects and the most doctrinaire of
scientific sects were not long in finding a formula to express their unity,
their denial of all those finer capacities which had emerged to be the spirit
of man.</p>
<p>These two faiths were at one in their respect for crude physical movement.
And here lay the deepest difference between the American and the Chinese minds.
For the former, activity, any sort of activity, was an end in itself; for the
latter, activity was but a progress toward the true end, which was rest, and
peace of mind. Action was to be undertaken only when equilibrium was disturbed.
And in this respect China was at one with India. Both preferred contemplation
to action.</p>
<p>Thus in China and India the passion for wealth was less potent than in
America. Wealth was the power to set things and people in motion; and in
America, therefore, wealth came to be frankly regarded as the breath of God,
the divine spirit immanent in man. God was the supreme Boss, the universal
Employer. His wisdom was conceived as a stupendous efficiency, his love as
munificence towards his employees. The parable of the talents was made the
corner-stone of education; and to be wealthy, therefore, was to be respected as
one of God's chief agents. The typical American man of big business was one
who, in the midst of a show of luxury, was at heart ascetic. He valued his
splendour only because it advertised to all men that he was of the elect. The
typical Chinese wealthy man was one who savoured his luxury with a delicate and
lingering palate, and was seldom tempted to sacrifice it to the barren lust of
power.</p>
<p>On the other hand, since American culture was wholly concerned with the
values of the individual life, it was more sensitive than the Chinese with
regard to the well-being of humble individuals. Therefore industrial conditions
were far better under American than under Chinese capitalism. And in China both
kinds of capitalism existed side by side. There were American factories in
which the Chinese operatives thrived on the American system, and there were
Chinese factories in which the operatives were by comparison abject
wage-slaves. The fact that many Chinese industrial workers could not afford to
keep a motor-car, let alone an aeroplane, was a source of much self-righteous
indignation amongst American employers. And the fact that this fact did not
cause a revolution in China, and that Chinese employers were able to procure
plenty of labour in spite of the better conditions in American factories, was a
source of perplexity. But in truth what the average Chinese worker wanted was
not symbolical self-assertion through the control of privately owned machines,
but security of life, and irresponsible leisure. In the earlier phase of
"modern" China there had indeed been serious explosions of class hatred. Almost
every one of the great Chinese industrial centres had, at some point in its
career, massacred its employers, and declared itself an independent communist
city-state. But communism was alien to China, and none of these experiments was
permanently successful. Latterly, when the rule of the Nationalist Party had
become secure, and the worst industrial evils had been abolished, class feeling
had given place to a patriotic loathing of American interference and American
hustle, and those who worked under American employers were often called
traitors.</p>
<p>The Nationalist Party was not, indeed, the soul of China; but it was, so to
speak, the central nervous system, within which the soul presided as a
controlling principle. The Party was an intensely practical yet idealistic
organization, half civil service, half religious order, though violently
opposed to every kind of religion. Modelled originally on the Bolshevic Party
of Russia, it had also drawn inspiration from the native and literary civil
service of old China, and even from the tradition of administrative integrity
which had been the best, the sole, contribution of British Imperialism to the
East. Thus, by a route of its own, the Party had approached the ideal of the
Platonic governors. In order to be admitted to the Party, it was necessary to
do two things, to pass a very strict written examination on Western and Chinese
social theory, and to come through a five years' apprenticeship in actual
administrative work. Outside the Party, China was still extremely corrupt; for
peculation and nepotism were not censured, so long as they were kept decently
hidden. But the Party set a brilliant example of self-oblivious devotion; and
this unheard-of honesty was one source of its power. It was universally
recognized that the Party man was genuinely interested in social rather than
private matters; and consequently he was trusted. The supreme object of his
loyalty was not the Party, but China, not indeed the mass of Chinese
individuals, whom he regarded with almost the same nonchalance as he regarded
himself, but the corporate unity and culture of the race.</p>
<p>The whole executive power in China was now in the hands of members of the
Party, and the final legislative authority was the Assembly of Party Delegates.
Between these two institutions stood the President. Sometimes no more than
chairman of the Executive Committee, this individual was now and then almost a
dictator, combining in himself the attributes of Prime Minister, Emperor, and
Pope. For the head of the Party was the head of the state; and like the ancient
emperors, he became the symbolical object of ancestor worship.</p>
<p>The Party's policy was dominated by the Chinese respect for culture. Just as
Western states had been all too often organized under the will for military
prestige, so the new China was organized under the will for prestige of
culture. For this end the American state was reviled as the supreme example of
barbarian vulgarity; and so patriotism was drawn in to strengthen the cultural
policy of the Party. It was boasted that, while indeed in America every man and
woman might hope to fight a way to material wealth, in China every intelligent
person could actually enjoy the cultural wealth of the race. The economic
policy of the Party was based on the principle of affording to all workers
security of livelihood and full educational opportunity. (In American eyes,
however, the livelihood thus secured was scarcely fit for beasts, and the
education provided was out of date and irreligious.) The Party took good care
to gather into itself all the best of every social class, and also to encourage
in the unintelligent masses a respect for learning, and the illusion that they
themselves shared to some extent in the national culture.</p>
<p>But in truth this culture, which the common people so venerated in their
superiors and mimicked in their own lives, was scarcely less superficial than
the cult of power against which it was pitted. For it was almost wholly a cult
of social rectitude and textual learning; not so much of the merely literary
learning which had obsessed ancient China, as of the vast corpus of
contemporary scientific dogma, and above all of pure mathematics. In old days
the candidate for office had to show minute but uncritical knowledge of
classical writers; now he had to give proof of a no less barren agility in
describing the established formula of physics, biology, psychology, and more
particularly of economics and social theory. And though never encouraged to
puzzle over the philosophical basis of mathematics, he was expected to be
familiar with the intricacy of at least one branch of that vast game of skill.
So great was the mass of information forced upon the student, that he had no
time to think of the mutual implications of the various branches of his
knowledge.</p>
<p>Yet there was a soul in China. And in this elusive soul of China the one
hope of the First Men now lay. Scattered throughout the Party was a minority of
original minds, who were its source of inspiration and the growing point of the
human spirit in this period. Well aware of man's littleness, these thinkers
regarded him none the less as the crown of the universe. On the basis of a
positivistic and rather perfunctory metaphysic, they built a social ideal and a
theory of art. Indeed, in the practice and appreciation of art they saw man's
highest achievement. Pessimistic about the remote future of the race, and
contemptuous of American evangelism, they accepted as the end of living the
creation of an intricately unified pattern of human lives set in a fair
environment. Society, the supreme work of art (so they put it), is a delicate
and perishable texture of human intercourse. They even entertained the
possibility that in the last resort, not only the individual's life, but the
whole career of the race, might be tragic, and to be valued according to the
standards of tragic art. Contrasting their own spirit with that of the
Americans, one of them had said, "America, a backward youth in a playroom
equipped with luxury and electric power, pretends that his mechanical toy moves
the world. China, a gentleman walking in his garden in the evening, admires the
fragrance and the order all the more because in the air is the first nip of
winter, and in his ear rumour of the irresistible barbarian."</p>
<p>In this attitude there was something admirable, and sorely needed at the
time; but also there was a fatal deficiency. In its best exponents it rose to a
detached yet fervent salutation of existence, but all too easily degenerated
into a supine complacency, and a cult of social etiquette. In fact it was ever
in danger of corruption through the inveterate Chinese habit of caring only for
appearances. In some respects the spirit of America and the spirit of China
were complementary, since the one was restless and the other bland, the one
zealous and the other dispassionate, the one religious, the other artistic, the
one superficially mystical or at least romantic, the other classical and
rationalistic, though too easy-going for prolonged rigorous thought. Had they
co-operated, these two mentalities might have achieved much. On the other hand,
in both there was an identical and all-important lack. Neither of them was
disturbed and enlightened by that insatiable lust for the truth, that passion
for the free exercise of critical intelligence, the gruelling hunt for reality,
which had been the glory of Europe and even of the earlier America, but now was
no longer anywhere among the First Men. And, consequent on this lack, another
disability crippled them. Both were by now without that irreverent wit which
individuals of an earlier generation had loved to exercise upon one another and
on themselves, and even on their most sacred values.</p>
<p>In spite of this weakness, with good luck they might have triumphed. But, as
I shall tell, the spirit of America undermined the integrity of China, and
thereby destroyed its one chance of salvation. There befell, in fact, one of
those disasters, half inevitable and half accidental, which periodically
descended on the First Men, as though by the express will of some divinity who
cared more for the excellence of his dramatic creation than for the sentient
puppets which he had conceived for its enacting.</p>
<p><b>2. THE CONFLICT</b></p>
<p>After the Euro-American War there occurred first a century of minor national
conflicts, and then a century of strained peace, during which America and China
became more and more irksome to each other. At the close of this period the
great mass of men were in theory far more cosmopolitan than nationalist, yet
the inveterate tribal spirit lurked within each mind, and was ever ready to
take possession. The planet was now a delicately organized economic unit, and
big business in all lands was emphatically contemptuous of patriotism. Indeed
the whole adult generation of the period was consciously and without reserve
internationalist and pacifist. Yet this logically unassailable conviction was
undermined by a biological craving for adventurous living. Prolonged peace and
improved social conditions had greatly reduced the danger and hardship of life,
and there was no socially harmless substitute to take the place of war in
exercising the primitive courage and anger of animals fashioned for the wild.
Consciously men desired peace, unconsciously they still needed some such
gallantry as war afforded. And this repressed combative disposition ever and
again expressed itself in explosions of irrational tribalism.</p>
<p>Inevitably a serious conflict at last occurred. As usual the cause was both
economic and sentimental. The economic cause was the demand for fuel. A century
earlier a very serious oil famine had so sobered the race that the League of
Nations had been able to impose a system of cosmopolitan control upon the
existing oil fields, and even the coal fields. It had also imposed strict
regulations as to the use of these invaluable materials. Oil in particular was
only to be used for enterprises in which no other source of power would serve.
The cosmopolitan control of fuel was perhaps the supreme achievement of the
League, and it remained a fixed policy of the race long after the League had
been superseded. Yet, by a choice irony of fate, this quite unusually sane
policy contributed largely to the downfall of civilization. By means of it, as
will later transpire, the end of coal was postponed into the period when the
intelligence of the race was so deteriorated that it could no longer cope with
such a crisis. Instead of adjusting itself to the novel situation, it simply
collapsed.</p>
<p>But at the time with which we are at present dealing, means had recently
been found of profitably working the huge deposits of fuel in Antarctica. This
vast supply unfortunately lay technically beyond the jurisdiction of the World
Fuel Control Board. America was first in the field, and saw in Antarctic fuel a
means for her advancement, and for her self-imposed duty of Americanizing the
planet. China, fearful of Americanization, demanded that the new sources should
be brought under the jurisdiction of the Board. For some years feeling had
become increasingly violent on this point, and both peoples had by now relapsed
into the crude old nationalistic mood. War began to seem almost inevitable.</p>
<p>The actual occasion of conflict, however, was, as usual, an accident. A
scandal was brought to light about child labour in certain Indian factories.
Boys and girls under twelve were being badly sweated, and in their abject state
their only adventure was precocious sex. The American Government protested, and
in terms which assumed that America was the guardian of the world's morals.
India immediately held up the reform which she had begun to impose, and replied
to America as to a busy-body. America threatened an expedition to set things
right, "backed by the approval of all the morally sensitive races of the
earth." China now intervened to keep the peace between her rival and her
partner, and undertook to see that the evil should be abolished, if America
would withdraw her extravagant slanders against the Eastern conscience. But it
was too late. An American bank in China was raided, and its manager's severed
head was kicked along the street. The tribes of men had once more smelled
blood. War was declared by the West upon the East.</p>
<p>Of the combatants, Asia, with North Africa, formed geographically the more
compact system, but America and her dependents were economically more
organized. At the outbreak of war neither side had any appreciable armament,
for war had long ago been "outlawed." This fact, however, made little
difference; since the warfare of the period could be carried on with great
effect simply by the vast swarms of civil air-craft, loaded with poison, high
explosives, disease microbes, and the still more lethal "hypobiological"
organisms, which contemporary science sometimes regarded as the simplest living
matter, sometimes as the most complex molecules.</p>
<p>The struggle began with violence, slackened, and dragged on for a quarter of
a century. At the close of this period, Africa was mostly in the hands of
America. But Egypt was an uninhabitable no-man's land, for the South Africans
had very successfully poisoned the sources of the Nile. Europe was under
Chinese military rule. This was enforced by armies of sturdy Central-Asiatics,
who were already beginning to wonder why they did not make themselves masters
of China also. The Chinese language, with European alphabet, was taught in all
schools. In England, however, there were no schools, and no population; for
early in the war, an American air-base had been established in Ireland, and
England had been repeatedly devastated. Airmen passing over what had been
London, could still make out the lines of Oxford Street and the Strand among
the green and grey tangle of ruins. Wild nature, once so jealously preserved in
national "beauty spots" against the incursion of urban civilization, now rioted
over the whole island. At the other side of the world, the Japanese islands had
been similarly devastated in the vain American effort to establish there an
air-base from which to reach the heart of the enemy. So far, however, neither
China nor America had been very seriously damaged; but recently the American
biologists had devised a new malignant germ, more infectious and irresistible
than anything hitherto known. Its work was to disintegrate the highest levels
of the nervous system, and therefore to render all who were even slightly
affected incapable of intelligent action; while a severe attack caused
paralysis and finally death. With this weapon the American military had already
turned one Chinese city into a bedlam; and wandering bacilli had got into the
brains of several high officials throughout the province, rendering their
behaviour incoherent. It was becoming the fashion to attribute all one's
blunders to a touch of the new microbe. Hitherto no effective means of
resisting the spread of this plague had been discovered. And as in the early
stages of the disease the patient became restlessly active, undertaking
interminable and objectless journeys on the flimsiest pretexts, it seemed
probable that the "American madness" would spread throughout China.</p>
<p>On the whole, then, the military advantage lay definitely with the
Americans; but economically they were perhaps the more damaged, for their
higher standard of prosperity depended largely on foreign investment and
foreign trade. Throughout the American continent there was now real poverty and
serious symptoms of class war, not indeed between private workers and
employers, but between workers and the autocratic military governing caste
which inevitably war had created. Big business had at first succumbed to the
patriotic fever, but had soon remembered that war is folly and ruinous to
trade. Indeed upon both sides the fervour of nationalism had lasted only a
couple of years, after which the lust of adventure had given place to mere
dread of the enemy. For on each side the populace had been nursed into the
belief that its foe was diabolic. When a quarter of a century had passed since
there had been free intercourse between the two peoples, the real mental
difference which had always existed between them appeared to many almost as a
difference of biological species. Thus in America the Church preached that no
Chinaman had a soul. Satan, it was said, had tampered with the evolution of the
Chinese race when first it had emerged from the pre-human animal. He had
contrived that it should be cunning, but wholly without tenderness. He had
induced in it an insatiable sensuality, and wilful blindness toward the divine,
toward that superbly masterful energy-for-energy's-sake which was the glory of
America. Just as in a prehistoric era the young race of mammals had swept away
the sluggish, brutish and demoded reptiles, so now, it was said, young soulful
America was destined to rid the planet of the reptilian Mongol. In China, on
the other hand, the official view was that the Americans were a typical case of
biological retrogression. Like all parasitic organisms, they had thriven by
specializing in one low-grade mode of behaviour at the expense of their higher
nature; and now, "tape-worms of the planet," they were starving out the higher
capacities of the human race by their frantic acquisitiveness.</p>
<p>Such were the official doctrines. But the strain of war had latterly
produced on each side a grave distrust of its own government, and an emphatic
will for peace at any price. The governments hated the peace party even more
than each other, since their existence now depended on war. They even went so
far as to inform one another of the clandestine operations of the pacifists,
discovered by their own secret service in enemy territory.</p>
<p>Thus when at last big business and the workers on each side of the Pacific
had determined to stop the war by concerted action, it was very difficult for
their representatives to meet.</p>
<p><b>3. ON AN ISLAND IN THE PACIFIC</b></p>
<p>Save for the governments, the whole human race now earnestly desired peace;
but opinion in America was balanced between the will merely to effect an
economic and political unification of the world, and a fanatical craving to
impose American culture on the East. In China also there was a balance of the
purely commercial readiness to sacrifice ideals for the sake of peace and
prosperity, and the will to preserve Chinese culture. The two individuals who
were to meet in secret for the negotiation of peace were typical of their
respective races; in both of them the commercial and cultural motives were
present, though the commercial was by now most often dominant.</p>
<p>It was in the twenty-sixth year of the war that two seaplanes converged by
night from the East and West upon an island in the Pacific, and settled on a
secluded inlet. The moon, destined in another age to smother this whole
equatorial region with her shattered body, now merely besparkled the waves.
From each plane a traveller emerged, and rowed himself ashore in a rubber
coracle. The two men met upon the beach, and shook hands, the one with
ceremony, the other with a slightly forced brotherliness. Already the sun
peered over the wall of the sea, shouting his brilliance and his heat. The
Chinese, taking off his air-helmet, uncoiled his pigtail with a certain
emphasis, stripped off his heavy coverings, and revealed a sky-blue silk pyjama
suit, embroidered with golden dragons. The other, glancing with scarcely veiled
dislike at this finery, flung off his wraps and displayed the decent grey coat
and breeches with which the American business men of this period unconsciously
symbolized their reversion to Puritanism. Smoking the Chinese envoy's
cigarettes, the two sat down to re-arrange the planet.</p>
<p>The conversation was amicable, and proceeded without hitch; for there was
agreement about the practical measures to be adopted. The government in each
country was to be overthrown at once. Both representatives were confident that
this could be done if it could be attempted simultaneously on each side of the
Pacific; for in both countries finance and the people could be trusted. In
place of the national governments, a World Finance Directorate was to be
created. This was to be composed of the leading commercial and industrial
magnates of the world, along with representatives of the workers'
organizations. The American representative should be the first president of the
Directorate, and the Chinese the first vice-president. The Directorate was to
manage the whole economic re-organization of the world. In particular,
industrial conditions in the East were to be brought into line with those of
America, while on the other hand the American monopoly of Antarctica was to be
abolished. That rich and almost virgin land was to be subjected to the control
of the Directorate.</p>
<p>Occasionally during the conversation reference was made to the great
cultural difference between the East and West; but both the negotiants seemed
anxious to believe that this was only a minor matter which need not be allowed
to trouble a business discussion.</p>
<p>At this point occurred one of those incidents which, minute in themselves,
have disproportionately great effects. The unstable nature of the First Men
made them peculiarly liable to suffer from such accidents, and especially so in
their decline.</p>
<p>The talk was interrupted by the appearance of a human figure swimming round
a promontory into the little bay. In the shallows she arose, and walked out of
the water towards the creators of the World State. A bronze young smiling
woman, completely nude, with breasts heaving after her long swim, she stood
before them, hesitating. The relation between the two men was instantly
changed, though neither was at first aware of it.</p>
<p>"Delicious daughter of Ocean," said the Chinese, in that somewhat archaic
and deliberately un-American English which the Asiatics now affected in
communication with foreigners, "what is there that these two despicable land
animals can do for you? For my friend, I cannot answer, but I at least am
henceforth your slave." His eyes roamed carelessly, yet as it were with perfect
politeness, all over her body. And she, with that added grace which haloes
women when they feel the kiss of an admiring gaze, pressed the sea from her
hair and stood at the point of speech.</p>
<p>But the American protested, "Whoever you are, please do not interrupt us. We
are really very busy discussing a matter of great importance, and we have no
time to spare. Please go. Your nudity is offensive to one accustomed to
civilized manners. In a modern country you would not be allowed to bathe
without a costume. We are growing very sensitive on this point."</p>
<p>A distressful but enhancing blush spread under the wet bronze, and the
intruder made as if to go. But the Chinese cried, "Stay! We have almost
finished our business talk. Refresh us with your presence. Bring the realities
back into our discussion by permitting us to contemplate for a while the
perfect vase line of your waist and thigh. Who are you? Of what race are you?
My anthropological studies fail to place you. Your skin is fairer than is
native here, though rich with sun. Your breasts are Grecian. Your lips are
chiselled with a memory of Egypt. Your hair, night though it was, is drying
with a most bewildering hint of gold. And your eyes, let me observe them. Long,
subtle, as my countrywomen's, unfathomable as the mind of India, they yet
reveal themselves to your new slave as not wholly black, but violet as the
zenith before dawn. Indeed this exquisite unity of incompatibles conquers both
my heart and my understanding."</p>
<p>During this harangue her composure was restored, though she glanced now and
then at the American, who kept ever removing his gaze from her.</p>
<p>She answered in much the same diction as the other; but, surprisingly, with
an old-time English accent, "I am certainly a mongrel. You might call me, not
daughter of Ocean, but daughter of Man; for wanderers of every race have
scattered their seed on this island. My body, I know, betrays its diverse
ancestry in a rather queer blend of characters. My mind is perhaps unusual too,
for I have never left this island. And though it is actually less than a
quarter of a century since I was born, a past century has perhaps had more
meaning for me than the obscure events of today. A hermit taught me. Two
hundred years ago he lived actively in Europe; but towards the end of his long
life he retreated to this island. As an old man he loved me. And day by day he
gave me insight into the great spirit of the past; but of this age he gave me
nothing. Now that he is dead, I struggle to familiarize myself with the
present, but I continue to see everything from the angle of another age. And
so," (turning to the American) "if I have offended against modern customs, it
is because my insular mind has never been taught to regard nakedness as
indecent. I am very ignorant, truly a savage. If only I could gain experience
of your great world! If ever this war ends, I must travel."</p>
<p>"Delectable," said the Chinese, "exquisitely proportioned, exquisitely
civilized savage! Come with me for a holiday in modern China. There you can
bathe without a costume, so long as you are beautiful."</p>
<p>She ignored this invitation, and seemed to have fallen into a reverie. Then
absently she continued, "Perhaps I should not suffer from this restlessness,
this craving to experience the world, if only I were to experience motherhood
instead. Many of the islanders from time to time have enriched me with their
embraces. But with none of them could I permit myself to conceive. They are
dear; but not one of them is at heart more than a child."</p>
<p>The American became restless. But again the Mongol intervened, with lowered
and deepened voice. "I," he said, "I, the Vice-President of the World Finance
Directorate, shall be honoured to afford you the opportunity of
motherhood."</p>
<p>She regarded him gravely, then smiled as on a child who asks more than it is
reasonable to give. But the American rose hastily. Addressing the silken
Mongol, he said, "You probably know that the American Government is in the act
of sending a second poison fleet to turn your whole population insane, more
insane than you are already. You cannot defend yourselves against this new
weapon; and if I am to save you, I must not trifle any longer. Nor must you,
for we must act simultaneously. We have settled all that matters for the
moment. But before I leave, I must say that your behaviour toward this woman
has very forcibly reminded me that there is something wrong with the Chinese
way of thought and life. In my anxiety for peace, I overlooked my duty in this
respect. I now give you notice that when the Directorate is established, we
Americans must induce you to reform these abuses, for the world's sake and your
own."</p>
<p>The Chinese rose and answered, "This matter must be settled locally. We do
not expect you to accept our standards, so do not you expect us to accept
yours." He moved toward the woman, smiling. And the smile outraged the
American.</p>
<p>We need not follow the wrangle which now ensued between the two
representatives, each of whom, though in a manner cosmopolitan in sentiment,
was heartily contemptuous of the other's values. Suffice it that the American
became increasingly earnest and dictatorial, the other increasingly careless
and ironical. Finally the American raised his voice and presented an ultimatum.
"Our treaty of world-union," he said, "will remain unsigned unless you add a
clause promising drastic reforms, which, as a matter of fact, my colleagues had
already proposed as a condition of co-operation. I had decided to withhold
them, in case they should wreck our treaty; but now I see they are essential.
You must educate your people out of their lascivious and idle ways, and give
them modern scientific religion. Teachers in your schools and universities must
pledge themselves to the modern fundamentalized physics and behaviourism, and
must enforce worship of the Divine Mover. The change will be difficult, but we
will help you. You will need a strong order of Inquisitors, responsible to the
Directorate. They will see also to the reform of your people's sexual frivolity
in which you squander so much of the Divine Energy. Unless you agree to this, I
cannot stop the war. The law of God must be kept, and those who know it must
enforce it."</p>
<p>The woman interrupted him. "Tell me, what is this 'God' of yours? The
Europeans worshipped love, not energy. What do you mean by energy? Is it merely
to make engines go fast, and to agitate the ether?"</p>
<p>He answered flatly, as if repeating a lesson, "God is the all-pervading
spirit of movement which seeks to actualize itself wherever it is latent. God
has appointed the great American people to mechanize the universe." He paused,
contemplating the clean lines of his sea-plane. Then he continued with
emphasis, "But come! Time is precious. Either you work for God, or we trample
you out of God's way."</p>
<p>The woman approached him, saying, "There is certainly something great in
this enthusiasm. But somehow, though my heart says you are right, my head is
doubting still. There must be a mistake somewhere."</p>
<p>"Mistake!" he laughed, overhanging her with his mask of power. "When a man's
soul is action, how can he be mistaken that action is divine? I have served the
great God, Energy, all my life, from garage boy to World President. Has not the
whole American people proved its faith by its success?"</p>
<p>With rapture, but still in perplexity, she gazed at him. "There's something
terribly wrong-headed about you Americans," she said, "but certainly you are
great." She looked him in the eyes. Then suddenly she laid a hand on him, and
said with conviction, "Being what you are, you are probably right. Anyhow you
are a man, a real man. Take me. Be the father of my boy. Take me to the
dangerous cities of America to work with you."</p>
<p>The President was surprised with sudden hunger for her body, and she saw it;
but he turned to the Vice-President and said, "She has seen where the truth
lies. And you? War, or co-operation in God's work?"</p>
<p>"The death of our bodies, or the death of our minds," said the Chinese, but
with a bitterness that lacked conviction; for he was no fanatic. "Well, since
the soul is only the harmoniousness of the body's behaviour, and since, in
spite of this little dispute, we are agreed that the co-ordination of activity
is the chief need of the planet today, and since in respect of our differences
of temperament this lady has judged in favour of America, and moreover since,
if there is any virtue in our Asiatic way of life, it will not succumb to a
little propaganda, but rather will be strengthened by opposition-- since all
these matters are so, I accept your terms. But it would be undignified in China
to let this great change be imposed upon her externally. You must give me time
to form in Asia a native and spontaneous party of Energists, who will
themselves propagate your gospel, and perhaps give it an elegance which, if I
may say so, it has not yet. Even this we will do to secure the cosmopolitan
control of Antarctica."</p>
<p>Thereupon the treaty was signed; but a new and secret codicil was drawn up
and signed also, and both were witnessed by the Daughter of Man, in a clear,
round, old-fashioned script.</p>
<p>Then, taking a hand of each, she said, "And so at last the world is united.
For how long, I wonder. I seem to hear my old master's voice scolding, as
though I had been rather stupid. But he failed me, and I have chosen a new
master, Master of the World."</p>
<p>She released the hand of the Asiatic, and made as if to draw the American
away with her. And he, though he was a strict monogamist with a better half
waiting for him in New York, longed to crush her sun-clad body to his Puritan
cloth. She drew him away among the palm trees.</p>
<p>The Vice-President of the World sat down once more, lit a cigarette, and
meditated, smiling.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER IV. AN AMERICANIZED PLANET</h3>
<p><b>1. THE FOUNDATION OF THE FIRST WORLD STATE</b></p>
<p>We have now reached that point in the history of the First Men when, some
three hundred and eighty terrestrial years after the European War, the goal of
world unity was at last achieved--not, however, before the mind of the race had
been seriously crippled.</p>
<p>There is no need to recount in detail the transition from rival national
sovereignties to unitary control by the World Financial Directorate. Suffice it
that by concerted action in America and China the military governments found
themselves hamstrung by the passive resistance of cosmopolitan big business. In
China this process was almost instantaneous and bloodless; in America there was
serious disorder for a few weeks, while the bewildered government attempted to
reduce its rebels by martial law. But the population was by now eager for
peace; and, although a few business magnates were shot, and a crowd of workers
here and there mown down, the opposition was irresistible. Very soon the
governing clique collapsed.</p>
<p>The new order consisted of a vast system akin to guild socialism, yet at
bottom individualistic. Each industry was in theory democratically governed by
all its members, but in practice was controlled by its dominant individuals.
Co-ordination of all industries was effected by a World Industrial Council,
whereon the leaders of each industry discussed the affairs of the planet as a
whole. The status of each industry on the Council was determined partly by its
economic power in the world, partly by public esteem. For already the
activities of men were beginning to be regarded as either "noble" or "ignoble;"
and the noble were not necessarily the most powerful economically. Thus upon
the Council appeared an inner ring of noble "industries," which were, in
approximate order of prestige, Finance, Flying, Engineering, Surface
Locomotion, Chemical Industry, and Professional Athletics. But the real seat of
power was not the Council, not even the inner ring of the Council, but the
Financial Directorate. This consisted of a dozen millionaires, with the
American President and the Chinese Vice-President at their head.</p>
<p>Within this august committee internal dissensions were inevitable. Shortly
after the system had been inaugurated the Vice-President sought to overthrow
the President by publishing his connection with a Polynesian woman who now
styled herself the Daughter of Man. This piece of scandal was expected to
enrage the virtuous American public against their hero. But by a stroke of
genius the President saved both himself and the unity of the world. Far from
denying the charge, he gloried in it. In that moment of sexual triumph, he
said, a great truth had been revealed to him. Without this daring sacrifice of
his private purity, he would never have been really fit to be President of the
World; he would have remained simply an American. In this lady's veins flowed
the blood of all races, and in her mind all cultures mingled. His union with
her, confirmed by many subsequent visits, had taught him to enter into the
spirit of the East, and had given him a broad human sympathy such as his high
office demanded. As a private individual, he insisted, he remained a monogamist
with a wife in New York; and, as a private individual, he had sinned, and must
suffer for ever the pangs of conscience. But as President of the World, it was
incumbent upon him to espouse the World. And since nothing could be said to be
real without a physical basis, this spiritual union had to be embodied and
symbolized by his physical union with the Daughter of Man. In tones of grave
emotion he described through the microphone how, in the presence of that
mystical woman, he had suddenly triumphed over his private moral scruples; and
how, in a sudden access of the divine energy, he had consummated his marriage
with the World in the shade of a banana tree.</p>
<p>The lovely form of the Daughter of Man (decently clad) was transmitted by
television to every receiver in the world. Her face, blended of Asia and the
West, became a most potent symbol of human unity. Every man on the planet
became in imagination her lover. Every woman identified herself with this
supreme woman.</p>
<p>Undoubtedly there was some truth in the plea that the Daughter of Man had
enlarged the President's mind, for his policy had been unexpectedly tactful
toward the East. Often he had moderated the American demand for the immediate
Americanization of China. Often he had persuaded the Chinese to welcome some
policy which at first they had regarded with suspicion.</p>
<p>The President's explanation of his conduct enhanced his prestige both in
America and Asia. America was hypnotized by the romantic religiosity of the
story. Very soon it became fashionable to be a strict monogamist with one
domestic wife, and one "symbolical" wife in the East, or in another town, or a
neighbouring street, or with several such in various localities. In China the
cold tolerance with which the President was first treated was warmed by this
incident into something like affection. And it was partly through his tact, or
the influence of his symbolical wife, that the speeding up of China's
Americanization was effected without disorder.</p>
<p>For some months after the foundation of the World State, China had been
wholly occupied in coping with the plague of insanity, called "the American
madness," with which her former enemy had poisoned her. The coast region of
North China had been completely disorganized. Industry, agriculture, transport,
were at a standstill. Huge mobs, demented and starving, staggered about the
country devouring every kind of vegetable matter and wrangling over the flesh
of their own dead. It was long before the disease was brought under control;
and indeed for years afterwards an occasional outbreak would occur, and cause
panic throughout the land.</p>
<p>To some of the more old-fashioned Chinese it appeared as though the whole
population had been mildly affected by the germ; for throughout China a new
sect, apparently a spontaneous native growth, calling themselves Energists,
began to preach a new interpretation of Buddhism in terms of the sanctity of
action. And, strange to say, this gospel throve to such an extent that in a few
years the whole educational system was captured by its adherents, though not
without a struggle with the reactionary members of the older universities.
Curiously enough, however, in spite of this general acceptance of the New Way,
in spite of the fact that the young of China were now taught to admire movement
in all its forms, in spite of a much increased wage-scale, which put all
workers in possession of private mechanical locomotion, the masses of China
continued at heart to regard action as a mere means toward rest. And when at
last a native physicist pointed out that the supreme expression of energy was
the tense balance of forces within the atom, the Chinese applied the doctrine
to themselves, and claimed that in them quiescence was the perfect balance of
mighty forces. Thus did the East contribute to the religion of this age. The
worship of activity was made to include the worship of inactivity. And both
were founded on the principles of natural science.</p>
<p><b>2. THE DOMINANCE OF SCIENCE</b></p>
<p>Science now held a position of unique honour among the First Men. This was
not so much because it was in this field that the race long ago during its high
noon had thought most rigorously, nor because it was through science that men
had gained some insight into the nature of the physical world, but rather
because the application of scientific principles had revolutionized their
material circumstances. The once fluid doctrines of science had by now begun to
crystallize into a fixed and intricate dogma; but inventive scientific
intelligence still exercised itself brilliantly in improving the technique of
industry, and thus completely dominated the imagination of a race in which the
pure intellectual curiosity had waned. The scientist was regarded as an
embodiment, not merely of knowledge, but of power; and no legends of the
potency of science seemed too fantastic to be believed.</p>
<p>A century after the founding of the first World State a rumour began to be
heard in China about the supreme secret of scientific religion, the awful
mystery of Gordelpus, by means of which it should be possible to utilize the
energy locked up in the opposition of proton and electron. Long ago discovered
by a Chinese physicist and saint, this invaluable knowledge was now reputed to
have been preserved ever since among the <i>elite</i> of science, and to be
ready for publication as soon as the world seemed fit to possess it. The new
sect of Energists claimed that the young Discoverer was himself an incarnation
of Buddha, and that, since the world was still unfit for the supreme
revelation, he had entrusted his secret to the Scientists. On the side of
Christianity a very similar legend was concerned with the same individual. The
Regenerate Christian Brotherhood, by now overwhelmingly the most powerful of
the Western Churches, regarded the Discoverer as the Son of God, who, in this
his Second Coming, had proposed to bring about the millennium by publishing the
secret of divine power; but, finding the peoples still unable to put in
practice even the more primitive gospel of love which was announced at his
First Coming, he had suffered martyrdom for man's sake, and had entrusted his
secret to the Scientists.</p>
<p>The scientific workers of the world had long ago organized themselves as a
close corporation. Entrance to the International College of Science was to be
obtained only by examination and the payment of high fees. Membership conferred
the title of "Scientist," and the right to perform experiments. It was also an
essential qualification for many lucrative posts. Moreover, there were said to
be certain technical secrets which members were pledged not to reveal. Rumour
had it that in at least one case of minor blabbing the traitor had shortly
afterwards mysteriously died.</p>
<p>Science itself, the actual corpus of natural knowledge, had by now become so
complex that only a tiny fraction of it could be mastered by one brain. Thus
students of one branch of science knew practically nothing of the work of
others in kindred branches. Especially was this the case with the huge science
called Subatomic Physics. Within this were contained a dozen studies, any one
of which was as complex as the whole of the physics of the Nineteenth Christian
Century. This growing complexity had rendered students in one field ever more
reluctant to criticize, or even to try to understand, the principles of other
fields. Each petty department, jealous of its own preserves, was meticulously
respectful of the preserves of others. In an earlier period the sciences had
been co-ordinated and criticized philosophically by their own leaders and by
the technical philosophers. But, philosophy, as a rigorous technical
discipline, no longer existed. There was, of course, a vague framework of
ideas, or assumptions, based on science, and common to all men, a popular
pseudo-science, constructed by the journalists from striking phrases current
among scientists. But actual scientific workers prided themselves on the
rejection of this ramshackle structure, even while they themselves were
unwittingly assuming it. And each insisted that his own special subject must
inevitably remain unintelligible even to most of his brother scientists.</p>
<p>Under these circumstances, when rumour declared that the mystery of
Gordelpus was known to the physicists, each department of subatomic physics was
both reluctant to deny the charge explicitly in its own case, and ready to
believe that some other department really did possess the secret. Consequently
the conduct of the scientists as a body strengthened the general belief that
they knew and would not tell.</p>
<p>About two centuries after the formation of the first World State, the
President of the World declared that the time was ripe for a formal union of
science and religion, and called a conference of the leaders of these two great
disciplines. Upon that island in the Pacific which had become the Mecca of
cosmopolitan sentiment, and was by now one vast many-storied, and cloud-capped
Temple of Peace, the heads of Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Hinduism, the Regenerate
Christian Brotherhood and the Modern Catholic Church in South America, agreed
that their differences were but differences of expression. One and all were
worshippers of the Divine Energy, whether expressed in activity, or in tense
stillness. One and all recognized the saintly Discoverer as either the last and
greatest of the prophets or an actual incarnation of divine Movement, And these
two concepts were easily shown, in the light of modern science, to be
identical.</p>
<p>In an earlier age it had been the custom to single out heresy and extirpate
it with fire and sword. But now the craving for uniformity was fulfilled by
explaining away differences, amid universal applause.</p>
<p>When the Conference had registered the unity of the religions, it went on to
establish the unity of religion and science. All knew, said the President, that
some of the scientists were in possession of the supreme secret, though,
wisely, they would not definitely admit it. It was time, then, that the
organizations of Science and Religion should be merged, for the better guidance
of men. He, therefore, called upon the International College of Science to
nominate from amongst themselves a select body, which should be sanctified by
the Church, and called the Sacred Order of Scientists. These custodians of the
supreme secret were to be kept at public expense. They were to devote
themselves wholly to the service of science, and in particular to research into
the most scientific manner of worshipping the Divine Gordelpus.</p>
<p>Of the scientists present, some few looked distinctly uncomfortable, but the
majority scarcely concealed their delight under dignified and thoughtful
hesitation. Amongst the priests also two expressions were visible; but on the
whole it was felt that the Church must gain by thus gathering into herself the
unique prestige of science. And so it was that the Order was founded which was
destined to become the dominant force in human affairs until the downfall of
the first world civilization.</p>
<p><b>3. MATERIAL ACHIEVEMENT</b></p>
<p>Save for occasional minor local conflicts, easily quelled by the World
Police, the race was now a single social unit for some four thousand years.
During the first of these millennia material progress at least was rapid, but
subsequently there was little change until the final disintegration. The whole
energy of man was concentrated on maintaining at a constant pitch the furious
routine of his civilization, until, after another three thousand years of
lavish expenditure, certain essential sources of power were suddenly exhausted.
Nowhere was there the mental agility to cope with this novel crisis. The whole
social order collapsed.</p>
<p>We may pass over the earlier stages of this fantastic civilization, and
examine it as it stood just before the fatal change began to be felt.</p>
<p>The material circumstances of the race at this time would have amazed all
its predecessors, even those who were in the true sense far more civilized
beings. But to us, the Last Men, there is an extreme pathos and even
comicality, not only in this most thorough confusion of material development
with civilization, but also in the actual paucity of the vaunted material
development itself, compared with that of our own society.</p>
<p>All the continents, indeed, were by now minutely artificialized. Save for
the many wild reserves which were cherished as museums and playgrounds, not a
square mile of territory was left in a natural state. Nor was there any longer
a distinction between agricultural and industrial areas. All the continents
were urbanized, not of course in the manner of the congested industrial cities
of an earlier age, but none the less urbanized. Industry and agriculture
interpenetrated everywhere. This was possible partly through the great
development of aerial communication, partly through a no less remarkable
improvement of architecture. Great advances in artificial materials had enabled
the erection of buildings in the form of slender pylons which, rising often to
a height of three miles, or even more, and founded a quarter of a mile beneath
the ground, might yet occupy a ground plan of less than half a mile across. In
section these structures were often cruciform; and on each floor, the centre of
the long-armed cross consisted of an aerial landing, providing direct access
from the air for the dwarf private aeroplanes which were by now essential to
the life of every adult. These gigantic pillars of architecture, prophetic of
the still mightier structures of an age to come, were scattered over every
continent in varying density. Very rarely were they permitted to approach one
another by a distance less than their height; on the other hand, save in the
arctic, they were very seldom separated by more than twenty miles. The general
appearance of every country was thus rather like an open forest of lopped
tree-trunks, gigantic in stature. Clouds often encircled the middle heights of
these artificial peaks, or blotted out all but the lower stories. Dwellers in
the summits were familiar with the spectacle of a dazzling ocean of cloud,
dotted on all sides with steep islands of architecture. Such was the altitude
of the upper floors that it was sometimes necessary to maintain in them, not
merely artificial heating, but artificial air pressure and oxygen supply.</p>
<p>Between these columns of habitation and industry, the land was everywhere
green or brown with the seasonal variations of agriculture, park, and wild
reserve. Broad grey thoroughfares for heavy freight traffic netted every
continent; but lighter transport and the passenger services were wholly aerial.
Over all the more populous districts the air was ever aswarm with planes up to
a height of five miles, where the giant air-liners plied between the
continents.</p>
<p>The enterprise of an already distant past had brought every land under
civilization. The Sahara was a lake district, crowded with sun-proud holiday
resorts. The arctic islands of Canada, ingeniously warmed by directed tropical
currents, were the homes of vigorous northerners. The coasts of Antarctica,
thawed in the same manner, were permanently inhabited by those engaged in
exploiting the mineral wealth of the hinterland.</p>
<p>Much of the power needed to keep this civilization in being was drawn from
the buried remains of prehistoric vegetation, in the form of coal. Although
after the foundation of the World State the fuel of Antarctica had been very
carefully husbanded, the new supply of oil had given out in less than three
centuries, and men were forced to drive their aeroplanes by electricity
generated from coal. It soon became evident, however, that even the
unexpectedly rich coal-fields of Antarctica would not last for ever. The
cessation of oil had taught men a much needed lesson, had made them feel the
reality of the power problem. At the same time the cosmopolitan spirit, which
was learning to regard the whole race as compatriots, was also beginning to
take a broader view temporally, and to see things with the eyes of remote
generations. During the first and sanest thousand years of the World State,
there was a widespread determination not to incur the blame of the future by
wasting power. Thus not only was there serious economy (the first large-scale
cosmopolitan enterprise), but also efforts were made to utilize more permanent
sources of power. Wind was used extensively. On every building swarms of
windmills generated electricity, and every mountain range was similarly
decorated, while every considerable fall of water forced its way through
turbines. More important still was the utilization of power derived from
volcanos and from borings into the subterranean heat. This, it had been hoped,
would solve the whole problem of power, once and for all. But even in the
earlier and more intelligent period of the World State inventive genius was not
what it had been, and no really satisfactory method was found. Consequently at
no stage of this civilization did volcanic sources do more than supplement the
amazingly rich coal seams of Antarctica. In this region coal was preserved at
far greater depths than elsewhere, because, by some accident, the earth's
central heat was not here fierce enough (as it was elsewhere) to turn the
deeper beds into graphite. Another possible source of power was known to exist
in the ocean tides; but the use of this was forbidden by the S.O.S. because,
since tidal motion was so obviously astronomical in origin, it had come to be
regarded as sacred.</p>
<p>Perhaps the greatest physical achievement of the First World State in its
earlier and more vital phase had been in preventive medicine. Though the
biological sciences had long ago become stereotyped in respect of fundamental
theories, they continued to produce many practical benefits. No longer did men
and women have to dread for themselves or those dear to them such afflictions
as cancer, tuberculosis, angina pectoris, the rheumatic diseases, and the
terrible disorders of the nervous system. No longer were there sudden microbic
devastations. No longer was childbirth an ordeal, and womanhood itself a source
of suffering. There were no more chronic invalids, no more life-long cripples.
Only senility remained; and even this could be repeatedly alleviated by
physiological rejuvenation. The removal of all these ancient sources of
weakness and misery, which formerly had lamed the race and haunted so many
individuals either with definite terrors or vague and scarcely conscious
despond, brought about now a pervading buoyancy and optimism impossible to
earlier peoples.</p>
<p><b>4. THE CULTURE OF THE FIRST WORLD STATE</b></p>
<p>Such was the physical achievement of this civilization. Nothing half so
artificial and intricate and prosperous had ever before existed. An earlier
age, indeed, had held before itself some such ideal as this; but its
nationalistic mania prevented it from attaining the necessary economic unity.
This latter-day civilization, however, had wholly outgrown nationalism, and had
spent many centuries of peace in consolidating itself. But to what end? The
terrors of destitution and ill-health having been abolished, man's spirit was
freed from a crippling burden, and might have dared great adventures. But
unfortunately his intelligence had by now seriously declined. And so this age,
far more than the notorious "nineteenth century," was the great age of barren
complacency.</p>
<p>Every individual was a well-fed and physically healthy human animal. He was
also economically independent. His working day was never more than six hours,
often only four. He enjoyed a fair share of the products of industry; and in
his long holidays he was free to wander in his own aeroplane all over the
planet. With good luck he might find himself rich, even for those days, at
forty; and if fortune had not favoured him, he might yet expect affluence
before he was eighty, when he could still look forward to a century of active
life.</p>
<p>But in spite of this material prosperity he was a slave. His work and his
leisure consisted of feverish activity, punctuated by moments of listless
idleness which he regarded as both sinful and unpleasant. Unless he was one of
the furiously successful minority, he was apt to be haunted by moments of
brooding, too formless to be called meditation, and of yearning, too blind to
be called desire. For he and all his contemporaries were ruled by certain ideas
which prevented them from living a fully human life.</p>
<p>Of these ideas one was the ideal of progress. For the individual, the goal
imposed by his religious teaching was continuous advancement in aeronautical
prowess, legal sexual freedom, and millionaireship. For the race also the ideal
was progress, and progress of the same unintelligent type. Ever more brilliant
and extensive aviation, ever more extensive legal sexual intercourse, ever more
gigantic manufacture, and consumption, were to be co-ordinated in an ever more
intricately organized social system. For the last three thousand years, indeed,
progress even of this rude kind had been minute; but this was a source of pride
rather than of regret. It implied that the goal was already almost attained,
the perfection which should justify the release of the secret of divine power,
and the inauguration of an era of incomparably mightier activity.</p>
<p>For the all-pervading idea which tyrannized over the race was the fanatical
worship of movement. Gordelpus, the Prime Mover, demanded of his human
embodiments swift and intricate activity, and the individual's prospect of
eternal life depended on the fulfillment of this obligation. Curiously, though
science had long ago destroyed the belief in personal immortality as an
intrinsic attribute of man, a complementary belief had grown up to the effect
that those who justified themselves in action were preserved eternally, by
special miracle, in the swift spirit of Gordelpus. Thus from childhood to death
the individual's conduct was determined by the obligation to produce as much
motion as possible, whether by his own muscular activity or by the control of
natural forces. In the hierarchy of industry three occupations were honoured
almost as much as the Sacred Order of Scientists, namely, flying, dancing, and
athletics. Every one practised all three of these crafts to some extent, for
they were imposed by religion; but the professional fliers and aeronautical
engineers, and the professional dancers and athletes, were a privileged
class.</p>
<p>Several causes had raised flying to a position of unique honour. As a means
of communication it was of extreme practical importance; and as the swiftest
locomotion it constituted the supreme act of worship. The accident that the
form of the aeroplane was reminiscent of the main symbol of the ancient
Christian religion lent flying an additional mystical significance. For though
the spirit of Christianity was lost, many of its symbols had been preserved in
the new faith. A more important source of the dominance of flying was that,
since warfare had long ceased to exist, aviation of a gratuitously dangerous
kind was the main outlet for the innate adventurousness of the human animal.
Young men and women risked their lives fervently for the glory of Gordelpus and
their own salvation, while their seniors took vicarious satisfaction in this
endless festival of youthful prowess. Indeed apart from the thrills of
devotional aerial acrobats, it is unlikely that the race would so long have
preserved its peace and its unity. On each of the frequent Days of Sacred
Flight special rituals of communal and solo aviation were performed at every
religious centre. On these occasions the whole sky would be intricately
patterned with thousands of planes, wheeling, tumbling, soaring, plunging, in
perfect order and at various altitudes, the dance at one level being subtly
complementary to the dance at others. It was as though the spontaneous
evolutions of many distinct flocks of redshank and dunlin were multiplied a
thousand-fold in complexity, and subordinated to a single ever-developing
terpsichorean theme. Then suddenly the whole would burst asunder to the
horizon, leaving the sky open for the quartets, duets and solos of the most
brilliant stars of flight. At night also, regiments of planes bearing coloured
lights would inscribe on the zenith ever-changing and symbolical patterns of
fire. Besides these aerial dances, there had existed for eight hundred years a
custom of spelling out periodically in a dense flight of planes six thousand
miles long the sacred rubrics of the gospel of Gordelpus, so that the living
word might be visible to other plants.</p>
<p>In the life of every individual, flying played a great part. Immediately
after birth he was taken up by a priestess of flight and dropped, clinging to a
parachute, to be deftly caught upon the wings of his father's plane. This
ritual served as a substitute for contraception (forbidden as an interference
with the divine energy); for since in many infants the old simian
grasping-instinct was atrophied, a large proportion of the new-born let go and
were smashed upon the paternal wings. At adolescence the individual (male or
female) took charge of a plane for the first time, and his life was
subsequently punctuated by severe aeronautical tests. From middle age onwards,
namely as a centenarian, when he could no longer hope to rise in the hierarchy
of active flight, he continued to fly daily for practical purposes.</p>
<p>The two other forms of ritual activity, dancing and athletics, were scarcely
less important. Nor were they confined wholly to the ground. For certain rites
were celebrated by dances upon the wings of a plane in mid air.</p>
<p>Dancing was especially associated with the Negro race, which occupied a very
peculiar position in the world at this time. As a matter of fact the great
colour distinctions of mankind were now beginning to fade. Increased aerial
communication had caused the black, brown, yellow and white stocks so to mingle
that everywhere there was by now a large majority of the racially
indistinguishable. Nowhere was there any great number of persons of marked
racial character. But each of the ancient types was liable to crop up now and
again in isolated individuals, especially in its ancient homeland. These
"throw-backs" were customarily treated in special and historically appropriate
manners. Thus, for instance, it was to "sports" of definite Negro character
that the most sacred dancing was entrusted.</p>
<p>In the days of the nations, the descendants of emancipated African slaves in
North America had greatly influenced the artistic and religious life of the
white population, and had inspired a cult of negroid dancing which survived
till the end of the First Men. This was partly due to the sexual and primitive
character of Negro dancing, sorely needed in a nation ridden by sexual taboos.
But it had also a deeper source. The American nation had acquired its slaves by
capture, and had long continued to spurn their descendants. Later it
unconsciously compensated for its guilt by a cult of the Negro spirit. Thus
when American culture dominated the planet, the pure Negroes became a sacred
caste. Forbidden many of the rights of citizenship, they were regarded as the
private servants of Gordelpus. They were both sacred and outcast. This dual
role was epitomized in an extravagant ritual which took place once a year in
each of the great national parks. A white woman and a Negro, both chosen for
their prowess in dance, performed a long and symbolical ballet, which
culminated in a ritual act of sexual violation, performed in full view of the
maddened spectators. This over, the Negro knifed his victim, and fled through
the forest pursued by an exultant mob. If he reached sanctuary, he became a
peculiarly sacred object for the rest of his life. But if he was caught, he was
torn to pieces or drenched with inflammable spirit and burned. Such was the
superstition of the First Men at this time that the participants in this
ceremony were seldom reluctant; for it was firmly believed that both were
assured of eternal life in Gordelpus. In America this Sacred Lynching was the
most popular of all festivals; for it was both sexual and bloody, and afforded
a fierce joy to the masses whose sex-life was restricted and secret. In India
and Africa the violator was always an "Englishman," when such a rare creature
could be found. In China the whole character of the ceremony was altered; for
the violation became a kiss, and the murder a touch with a fan.</p>
<p>One other race, the Jews, were treated with a similar combination of honour
and contempt, but for very different reasons. In ancient days their general
intelligence, and in particular their financial talent, had co-operated with
their homelessness to make them outcasts; and now, in the decline of the First
Men, they retained the fiction, if not strictly the fact, of racial integrity.
They were still outcasts, though indispensable and powerful. Almost the only
kind of intelligent activity which the First Men could still respect was
financial operation, whether private or cosmopolitan. The Jews had made
themselves invaluable in the financial organization of the world state, having
far outstripped the other races because they alone had preserved a furtive
respect for pure intelligence. And so, long after intelligence had come to be
regarded as disreputable in ordinary men and women, it was expected of the
Jews. In them it was called satanic cunning, and they were held to be
embodiments of the powers of evil, harnessed in the service of Gordelpus. Thus
in time the Jews had made something like "a corner" in intelligence. This
precious commodity they used largely for their own purposes; for two thousand
years of persecution had long ago rendered them permanently tribalistic,
subconsciously if not consciously. Thus when they had gained control of the few
remaining operations which demanded originality rather than routine, they used
this advantage chiefly to strengthen their own position in the world. For,
though relatively bright, they had suffered much of the general coarsening and
limitation which had beset the whole world. Though capable to some extent of
criticizing the practical means by which ends should be realized, they were by
now wholly incapable of criticizing the major ends which had dominated their
race for thousands of years. In them intelligence had become utterly
subservient to tribalism. There was thus some excuse for the universal hate and
even physical repulsion with which they were regarded; for they alone had
failed to make the one great advance, from tribalism to a cosmopolitanism which
in other races was no longer merely theoretical. There was good reason also for
the respect which they received, since they retained and used somewhat
ruthlessly a certain degree of the most distinctively human attribute,
intelligence.</p>
<p>In primitive times the intelligence and sanity of the race had been
preserved by the inability of its unwholesome members to survive. When
humanitarianism came into vogue, and the unsound were tended at public expense,
this natural selection ceased. And since these unfortunates were incapable
alike of prudence and of social responsibility, they procreated without
restraint, and threatened to infect the whole species with their rottenness.
During the zenith of Western Civilization, therefore, the subnormal were
sterilized. But the latter-day worshippers of Gordelpus regarded both
sterilization and contraception as a wicked interference with the divine
potency. Consequently the only restriction on population was the suspension of
the new-born from aeroplanes, a process which, though it eliminated weaklings,
favoured among healthy infants rather the primitive than the highly developed.
Thus the intelligence of the race steadily declined. And no one regretted
it.</p>
<p>The general revulsion from intelligence was a corollary of the adoration of
instinct, and this in turn was an aspect of the worship of activity. Since the
unconscious source of human vigour was the divine energy, spontaneous impulse
must so far as possible never be thwarted. Reasoning was indeed permitted to
the individual within the sphere of his official work, but never beyond. And
not even specialists might indulge in reasoning and experiment without
obtaining a licence for the particular research. The licence was expensive, and
was only granted if the goal in view could be shown to be an increase of world
activity. In old times certain persons of morbid curiosity had dared to
criticize the time-honoured methods of doing things, and had suggested "better"
methods not convenient to the Sacred Order of Scientists. This had to be
stopped. By the fourth millennium of the World State the operations of
civilization had become so intricately stereotyped that novel situations of a
major order never occurred.</p>
<p>One kind of intellectual pursuit in addition to finance was, indeed.
honoured, namely mathematical calculation. All ritual movements, all the
motions of industrial machinery, all observable natural phenomena, had to be
minutely described in mathematical formulae. The records were filed in the
sacred archives of the S.O.S. And there they remained. The vast enterprise of
mathematical description was the main work of the scientists, and was said to
be the only means by which the evanescent thing, movement, could be passed into
the eternal being of Gordelpus.</p>
<p>The cult of instinct did not result simply in a life of ungoverned impulse.
Far from it. For the fundamental instinct, it was said, was the instinct to
worship Gordelpus in action, and this should rule all the other instincts. Of
these, the most important and sacred was the sexual impulse, which the First
Men had ever tended to regard as both divine and obscene. Sex, therefore, was
now very strictly controlled. Reference to sexuality, save by circumlocution,
was forbidden by law. Persons who remarked on the obvious sexual significance
of the religious dances, were severely punished. No sexual activity and no sex
knowledge were permitted to the individual until he had won his (or her) wings.
Much information, of a distorted and perverted nature could, indeed, be gained
meanwhile by observation of the religious writings and practices; but
officially these sacred matters were all given a metaphysical, not a sexual
interpretation. And though legal maturity, the Wing-Winning, might occur as
early as the age of fifteen, sometimes it was not attained till forty. If at
that age the individual still failed in the test, he or she was forbidden
sexual intercourse and information for ever.</p>
<p>In China and India this extravagant sexual taboo was somewhat mitigated.
Many easy-going persons had come to feel that the imparting of sex knowledge to
the "immature" was only wrong when the medium of communication was the sacred
American language. They therefore made use of the local patois. Similarly,
sexual activity of the "immature" was permissible so long as it was performed
solely in the wild reserves, and without American speech. These subterfuges,
however, were condemned by the orthodox, even in Asia.</p>
<p>When a man had won his wings, he was formally initiated into the mystery of
sex and all its "biologico-religious" significance. He was also allowed to take
a "domestic wife." and after a much more severe aviation test, any number of
"symbolical" wives. Similarly with the woman. These two kinds of partnership
differed greatly. The "domestic" husband and wife appeared in public together,
and their union was indissoluble. The "symbolic" union, on the other hand,
could be dissolved by either party. Also it was too sacred ever to be revealed,
or even mentioned, in public.</p>
<p>A very large number of persons never passed the test which sanctioned
sexuality. These either remained virgin, or indulged in sexual relations which
were not only illegal but sacrilegious. The successful, on the other hand, were
apt to consummate sexually every casual acquaintance.</p>
<p>Under these circumstances it was natural that there should exist among the
sexually submerged part of the population certain secret cults which sought
escape from harsh reality into worlds of fantasy. Of these illicit sects, two
were most widespread. One was a perversion of the ancient Christian faith in a
God of Love. All love, it was said, is sexual; therefore in worship, private or
public, the individual must seek a direct sexual relation with God. Hence arose
a grossly phallic cult, very contemptible to those more fortunate persons who
had no need of it.</p>
<p>The other great heresy was derived partly from the energy of repressed
intellective impulses, and was practised by persons of natural curiosity who,
nevertheless, shared the universal paucity of intelligence. These pathetic
devotees of intellect were inspired by Socrates. That great primitive had
insisted that clear thought is impossible without clear definition of terms,
and that without clear thinking man misses fullness of being. These his last
disciples were scarcely less fervent admirers of truth than their master, yet
they missed his spirit completely. Only by knowing the truth, they said, can
the individual attain immortality; only by defining can he know the truth.
Therefore, meeting together in secret, and in constant danger of arrest for
illicit intellection, they disputed endlessly about the definition of things.
But the things which they were concerned to define were not the basic concepts
of human thought; for these, they affirmed, had been settled once for all by
Socrates and his immediate followers. Therefore, accepting these as true, and
grossly misunderstanding them, the ultimate Socratics undertook to define all
the processes of the world state and the ritual of the established religion,
all the emotions of men and women, all the shapes of noses, mouths, buildings,
mountains, clouds, and in fact the whole superficies of their world. Thus they
believe that they emancipated themselves from the philistinism of their age,
and secured comradeship with Socrates in the hereafter.</p>
<p><b>5. DOWNFALL</b></p>
<p>The collapse of this first world-civilization was due to the sudden failure
of the supplies of coal. All the original fields had been sapped centuries
earlier, and it should have been obvious that those more recently discovered
could not last for ever. For some thousands of years the main supply had come
from Antarctica. So prolific was this continent that latterly a superstition
had arisen in the clouded minds of the world-citizens that it was in some
mysterious manner inexhaustible. Thus when at last, in spite of strict
censorship, the news began to leak out that even the deepest possible borings
had failed to reveal further vegetable deposits of any kind, the world was at
first incredulous.</p>
<p>The sane policy would have been to abolish the huge expense of power on
ritual flying, which used more of the community's resources than the whole of
productive industry. But to believers in Gordelpus such a course was almost
unthinkable. Moreover it would have undermined the flying aristocracy. This
powerful class now declared that the time had come for the release of the
secret of divine power, and called on the S.O.S. to inaugurate the new era.
Vociferous agitation in all lands put the scientists in an awkward plight. They
gained time by declaring that, though the moment of revelation was approaching,
it had not yet arrived; for they had received a divine intimation that this
failure of coal was imposed as a supreme test of man's faith. The service of
Gordelpus in ritual flight must be rather increased than reduced. Spending a
bare minimum of its power on secular matters, the race must concentrate upon
religion. When Gordelpus had evidence of their devotion and trust, he would
permit the scientists to save them.</p>
<p>Such was the prestige of science that at first this explanation was
universally accepted. The ritual flights were maintained. All luxury trades
were abolished, and even vital services were reduced to a minimum. Workers thus
thrown out of employment were turned over to agricultural labour; for it was
felt that the use of mechanical power in mere tillage must be as soon as
possible abolished. These changes demanded far more organizing ability than was
left in the race. Confusion was widespread, save here and there where serious
organization was attempted by certain Jews.</p>
<p>The first result of this great movement of economy and self-denial was to
cause something of a spiritual awakening among many who had formerly lived a
life of bored ease. This was augmented by the widespread sense of crisis and
impending marvels. Religion, which, in spite of its universal authority in this
age, had become a matter of ritual rather than of inward experience, began to
stir in many hearts,--not indeed as a movement of true worship, but rather as a
vague awe, not unmixed with self-importance.</p>
<p>But as the novelty of this enthusiasm dwindled, and life became increasingly
uncomfortable, even the most zealous began to notice with horror that in
moments of inactivity they were prone to doubts too shocking to confess. And as
the situation worsened, even a life of ceaseless action could not suppress
these wicked fantasies.</p>
<p>For the race was now entering upon an unprecedented psychological crisis,
brought about by the impact of the economic disaster upon a permanently
unwholesome mentality. Each individual, it must be remembered, had once been a
questioning child, but had been taught to shun curiosity as the breath of
Satan. Consequently the whole race was suffering from a kind of inverted
repression, a repression of the intellective impulses. The sudden economic
change, which affected all classes throughout the planet, thrust into the focus
of attention a shocking curiosity, an obsessive scepticism, which had hitherto
been buried in the deepest recesses of the mind.</p>
<p>It is not easy to conceive the strange mental disorder that now afflicted
the whole race, symbolizing itself in some cases by fits of actual physical
vertigo. After centuries of prosperity, of routine, of orthodoxy, men were
suddenly possessed by a doubt which they regarded as diabolical. No one said a
word of it; but in each man's own mind the fiend raised a whispering head, and
each was haunted by the troubled eyes of his fellows. Indeed the whole changed
circumstances of his life jibed at his credulity.</p>
<p>Earlier in the career of the race, this world crisis might have served to
wake men into sanity. Under the first pressure of distress they might have
abandoned the extravagances of their culture. But by now the ancient way of
life was too deeply rooted. Consequently, we observe the fantastic spectacle of
a world engaged, devotedly and even heroically, on squandering its resources in
vast aeronautical displays, not through single-minded faith in their rightness
and efficacy, but solely in a kind of desperate automatism. Like those little
rodents whose migration became barred by an encroachment of the sea, so that
annually they drowned themselves in thousands, the First Men helplessly
continued in their ritualistic behaviour; but unlike the lemmings, they were
human enough to be at the same time oppressed by unbelief, an unbelief which,
moreover, they dared not recognize.</p>
<p>To gain a clearer view of this strange state of mind, let us watch the
conduct of an individual. An important but typical incident occurred on the
north coast of Baffin Island, now a great timber area dotted with residential
pylons. The final preparations were being made for the great New Year Flight,
in which the island intended to dazzle the rest of the archipelago. In every
building the aerial landings thronged with planes and busy fliers. One of these
planes was being given its finishing touches by a mother, while her boy
watched, or lent a hand. Like many others, that afternoon she was in an
overwrought state. Food had long been unwholesome and scanty. The central
heating had been cruelly diminished, and the upper stories of the pylon were
arctic. The lad had made matters worse by ragging her with innocently
blasphemous suggestions, with which at heart she could not but sympathise. Why
bother about the ceremony? Why not use their ration of power to go shopping in
the South? Sure Gordelpus could not want his people to waste power in air shows
when they were starving and freezing. She would never want him to starve, just
to show he loved her. Gordelpus must be a beast if he liked that sort of thing.
And anyhow it was dangerous to do flying-stunts when she was all empty and
wobbly. In vain she had silenced him with the correct answers, for she herself
was not convinced by them. Her hands blundered, her vision was obscured by
tears. A spanner slipped, and she barked her knuckles.</p>
<p>The two drifted to the window and looked out across the dark carpet of
forest, actually so hilly, yet so level in this lofty view. The western sky was
colouring. Two distant buildings stood against it, giants of dark
rectitude.</p>
<p>"The sun is setting," she said, "and we are not ready." Silently the two
worked on the place for a while, till a siren sounded wailing, threateningly.
While they hurried into their flying clothes, the great air-doors slid open,
and an arctic wind leapt at them. Both climbed into the machine and waited. The
boy crunched a precious biscuit. Another scream of the siren, and they shot out
into the glowing void. They became an insignificant unit in a swarm of planes
that had issued from every floor of the building to climb the violet zenith.
From the distant pylons arose a similar smoke of fliers.</p>
<p>At first the exhilaration of flight, and the hypnotic presence of a vast
aerial multitude, banished all troubles. Almost every flier attained for a
while that ecstasy of action which was both the glory and the undoing of the
First Men. Hour after hour they looped and wheeled, climbed, poised and dived,
weaving kaleidoscopic patterns on the darkness with their coloured lights. They
were a tumultuous yet ordered galaxy, spread out from horizon to horizon.</p>
<p>Overhead, Sirius winded; Orion lounged unimpressed.</p>
<p>Now in the New Year ceremony the movement of the dance was arranged to
accelerate steadily from midnight up to the climax of dawn. And the dancers
expected to be strengthened with an increasing fervour which should blot out
fatigue. But on this occasion many of the fliers were shocked to find
themselves hampered by physical exhaustion and spiritual lassitude. Amongst
these were the mother and her boy. In him, exhilaration had given place to
brooding, to furtive critical introspection of the whole circumstance of his
life. He thought of himself as a fledgling that a hawk had snatched up aloft,
crushing its incompetent wings. The hawk was not his mother, but some invisible
spirit of flight, in whose grip she was also powerless. Presently this reverie
gave way to anxiety, for he noticed that he control of the plane was becoming
erratic.</p>
<p>And now the supreme moment was at hand. Already the Eastern sky was warm.
The whole aerial population raced toward it, and soared vertically, higher and
higher, till they flashed into the sunlight, inscribing the holy name on the
sky in letters of massed flight. Then they dropped backwards into the darkness.
Again and again they leapt, flashed, dropped, until at last the sun touched the
hill tops beneath them.</p>
<p>The mother's icy hands fumbled at their work. Her head reeled. All night she
had fought alternately against two enemies, despair, and increasing tendency to
fall asleep. Again and again she had plucked herself from the rising tide of
somnolence; again and again she had wakened to the stark fact that her boy and
herself were helpless in a doomed world. At last, in a vision born of
exhaustion and misery, she seemed to herself to see beneath her the whole globe
of the earth in all its detail, its squared forests and tillage, its
long-shadowed towers, its arctic channels, where old men vainly sought for a
way to the golden East, and naively gathered pyrites, its Greenland's icy
mountains, its India, and Africa, and through its oddly transparent depths to
irrigated Australia. How queer the people looked there, all upside-down!
Lunatics! All the planet was seen to be peopled with lunatics; and over it
spread the fiery and mindless desert of the sky. She put her hands over her
eyes. The plane strayed for a few seconds unguided, then spun, and crashed
among the pine trees.</p>
<p>Others also came to grief that night. There were casualties in every land.
Some blundered in the wild acrobatics at dawn, and went headlong to death.
Some, appalled by disillusion, deliberately wrecked themselves. Some few dared
to break rank and fly off in sacrilegious independence-till they were shot down
for treason against Gordelpus.</p>
<p>Meanwhile the scientists were earnestly and secretly delving in the ancient
literature of their science, in hope of discovering the forgotten talisman.
They undertook also clandestine experiments, but upon a false trail laid by the
wily English contemporary of the Discoverer. The main results were, that
several researchers were poisoned or electrocuted, and a great college was
blown up. This event impressed the populace, who supposed the accident to be
due to an overdaring exercise of the divine potency. The misunderstanding
inspired the desperate scientists to rig further impressive "miracles," and
moreover to use them to dispel the increasing restlessness of hungry industrial
workers. Thus when a deputation arrived outside the offices of Cosmopolitan
Agriculture to demand more flour for industrialists, Gordelpus miraculously
blew up the ground on which they stood, and flung their bodies among the
onlookers. When the agriculturists of China struck to obtain a reasonable
allowance of electric power for their tillage, Gordelpus affected them with an
evil atmosphere, so that they choked and died in thousands. Stimulated in this
manner by direct divine intervention, the doubting and disloyal elements of the
world population recovered their faith and their docility. And so the world
jogged on for a while, as nearly as possible as it had done for the last four
thousand years, save for a general increase of hunger and ill-health.</p>
<p>But inevitably, as the conditions of life became more and more severe.
docility gave place to desperation. Daring spirits began publicly to question
the wisdom, and even the piety, of so vast an expenditure of power upon ritual
flight, when prime necessities such as food and clothing were becoming so
scarce. Did not this helpless devotion merely ridicule them in the divine eyes?
God helps him who helps himself. Already the death rate had risen alarmingly.
Emaciated and ragged persons were beginning to beg in public places. In certain
districts whole populations were starving, and the Directorate did nothing for
them. Yet, elsewhere, harvests were being wasted for lack of power to reap
them. In all lands an angry clamour arose for the inauguration of the new
era.</p>
<p>The scientists were by now panic-stricken. Nothing had come of their
researches, and it was evident that in future all wind and water-power must be
devoted to the primary industries. Even so, there was starvation ahead for
many. The President of the Physical Society suggested to the Directorate that
ritual flying should at once be reduced by half as a compromise with Gordelpus.
Immediately the hideous truth, which few hitherto had dared to admit even to
themselves, was blurted out upon the ether by a prominent Jew: the whole hoary
legend of the divine secret was a lie, else why were the physicists
temporizing? Dismay and rage spread over the planet. Everywhere the people rose
against the scientists, amid against the governing authority which they
controlled. Massacres and measures of retaliation soon developed into civil
wars. China and India declared themselves free national states, but could not
achieve internal unity. In America, ever a stronghold of science and religion,
the Government maintained its authority for a while; but as its seat became
less secure, its methods became more ruthless. Finally it made the mistake of
using not merely poison gas, but microbes; and such was the decayed state of
medical science that no one could invent a means of restraining their ravages.
The whole American continent succumbed to a plague of pulmonary and nervous
diseases. The ancient "American Madness," which long ago had been used against
China, now devastated America. The great stations of waterpower and windpower
were wrecked by lunatic mobs who sought vengeance upon anything associated with
authority. Whole populations vanished in an orgy of cannibalism.</p>
<p>In Asia and Africa, some semblance of order was maintained for a while.
Presently, however, the American Madness spread to these continents also, and
very soon all living traces of their civilization vanished.</p>
<p>Only in the most natural fertile areas of the world could the diseased
remnant of a population now scrape a living from the soil. Elsewhere, utter
desolation. With easy strides the jungle came back into its own.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER V. THE FALL OF THE FIRST MEN</h3>
<p><b>1. THE FIRST DARK AGE</b></p>
<p>We have reached a period in man's history rather less than five thousand
years after the life of Newton. In this chapter we must cover about one hundred
and fifteen thousand years, and in the next chapter another ten million years.
That will bring us to a point as remotely future from the First World State as
the earliest anthropoids were remotely past. During the first tenth of the
first million years after the fall of the World State, during a hundred
thousand years, man remained in complete eclipse. Not till the close of this
span, which we will call the First Dark Age, did he struggle once more from
savagery through barbarism into civilization and then his renaissance was
relatively brief. From its earliest beginnings to its end, it covered only
fifteen thousand years; and in its final agony the planet was so seriously
damaged that mind lay henceforth in deep slumber for ten more millions of
years. This was the Second Dark Age. Such is the field which we must observe in
this and the following chapter.</p>
<p>It might have been expected that, after the downfall of the First World
State, recovery would have occurred within a few generations. Historians have,
indeed, often puzzled over the cause of this surprisingly complete and lasting
degradation. Innate human nature was roughly the same immediately after as
immediately before the crisis; yet minds that had easily maintained a
world-civilization in being, proved quite incapable of building a new order on
the ruins of the old. Far from recovering, man's estate rapidly deteriorated
till it had sunk into abject savagery.</p>
<p>Many causes contributed to this result, some relatively superficial and
temporary, some profound and lasting. It is as though Fate, directing events
toward an allotted end, had availed herself of many diverse instruments, none
of which would have sufficed alone, though all worked together irresistibly in
the same sense. The immediate cause of the helplessness of the race during the
actual crisis of the World State was of course the vast epidemic of insanity
and still more widespread deterioration of intelligence, which resulted from
the use of microbes. This momentary seizure made it impossible for man to check
his downfall during its earliest and least unmanageable stage. Later, when the
epidemic was spent, even though civilization was already in ruins, a concerted
effort of devotion might yet have rebuilt it on a more modest plan. But among
the First Men only a minority had ever been capable of wholehearted devotion.
The great majority were by nature too much obsessed by private impulses. And in
this black period, such was the depth of disillusion and fatigue, that even
normal resolution was impossible. Not only man's social structure but the
structure of the universe itself, it seemed, had failed. The only reaction was
supine despair. Four thousand years of routine had deprived human nature of all
its suppleness. To expect these things to refashion their whole behaviour, were
scarcely less unreasonable than to expect ants, when their nest was flooded, to
assume the habits of water beetles.</p>
<p>But a far more profound and lasting cause doomed the First Men to lie prone
for a long while, once they had fallen. A subtle physiological change, which it
is tempting to call "general senescence of the species," was undermining the
human body and mind. The chemical equilibrium of each individual was becoming
more unstable, so that, little by little, man's unique gift of prolonged youth
was being lost. Far more rapidly than of old, his tissues failed to compensate
for the wear and tear of living. This disaster was by no means inevitable; but
it was brought on by influences peculiar to the make-up of the species, and
aggravated artificially. For during some thousands of years man had been living
at too high a pressure in a biologically unnatural environment, and had found
no means of compensating his nature for the strain thus put upon it.</p>
<p>Conceive, then, that after the fall of the First World State, the
generations slid rapidly through dusk into night. To inhabit those centuries
was to live in the conviction of universal decay, and under the legend of a
mighty past. The population was derived almost wholly from the agriculturists
of the old order, and since agriculture had been considered a sluggish and base
occupation, fit only for sluggish natures, the planet was now peopled with
yokels. Deprived of power, machinery, and chemical fertilizers, these bumpkins
were hard put to it to keep themselves alive. And indeed only a tenth of their
number survived the great disaster. The second generation knew civilization
only as a legend. Their days were filled with ceaseless tillage, and in banding
together to fight marauders. Women became once more sexual and domestic
chattels. The family, or tribe of families, became the largest social whole.
Endless brawls and feuds sprang up between valley and valley, and between the
tillers and the brigand swarms. Small military tyrants rose and fell; but no
permanent unity of control could be maintained over a wide region. There was no
surplus wealth to spend on such luxuries as governments and trained armies.</p>
<p>Thus without appreciable change the millennia dragged on in squalid
drudgery. For these latter-day barbarians were hampered by living in a used
planet. Not only were coal and oil no more, but almost no mineral wealth of any
kind remained within reach of their feeble instruments and wits. In particular
the minor metals, needed for so many of the multifarious activities of
developed material civilization, had long ago disappeared from the more
accessible depths of the earth's crust. Tillage moreover was hampered by the
fact that iron itself, which was no longer to be had without mechanical mining,
was now inaccessible. Men had been forced to resort once more to stone
implements, as their first human ancestors had done. But they lacked both the
skill and the persistence of the ancients. Not for them the delicate flaking of
the Paleoliths nor the smooth symmetry of the Neoliths. Their tools were but
broken pebbles, chipped improvements upon natural stones. On almost every one
they engraved the same pathetic symbol, the Swastika or cross, which had been
used by the First Men as a sacred emblem throughout their existence, though
with varying significance. In this instance it had originally been the figure
of an aeroplane diving to destruction, and had been used by the rebels to
symbolize the downfall of Gordelpus and the State. But subsequent generations
reinterpreted the emblem as the sign manual of a divine ancestor, and as a
memento of the golden age from which they were destined to decline for ever, or
until the gods should intervene. Almost one might say that in its persistent
use of this symbol the first human species unwittingly epitomized its own dual
and self-thwarting nature.</p>
<p>The idea of irresistible decay obsessed the race at this time. The
generation which brought about the downfall of the World State oppressed its
juniors with stories of past amenities and marvels, and hugged to itself the
knowledge that the young men had not the wit to rebuild such complexity.
Generation by generation, as the circumstance of actual life became more
squalid, the legend of past glory became more extravagant. The whole mass of
scientific knowledge was rapidly lost, save for a few shreds which were of
practical service even in savage life. Fragments of the old culture were indeed
preserved in the tangle of folk-lore that meshed the globe, but they were
distorted beyond recognition. Thus there was a widespread belief that the world
had begun as fire, and that life had evolved out of the fire. After the apes
had appeared, evolution ceased (so it was said), until divine spirits came down
and possessed the female apes, thereby generating human beings. Thus had arisen
the golden age of the divine ancestors. But unfortunately after a while the
beast in man had triumphed over the god, so that progress had given place to
age-long decay. And indeed decay was now unavoidable, until such time as the
gods should see fit to come down to cohabit with women and fire the race once
more. This faith in the second coming of the gods persisted here and there
throughout the First Dark Age, and consoled men for their vague conviction of
degeneracy.</p>
<p>Even at the close of the First Dark Age, the ruins of the ancient
residential pylons still characterized every landscape, often with an effect of
senile domination over the hovels of latter-day savages. For the living races
dwelt beneath these relics like puny grandchildren playing around the feet of
their fathers' once mightier fathers. So well had the past built, and with such
durable material, that even after a hundred millennia the ruins were still
recognizably artifacts. Though for the most part they were of course by now
little more than pyramids of debris overgrown with grass and brushwood, most of
them retained some stretch of standing wall, and here and there a favoured
specimen still reared from its rubble-encumbered base a hundred foot or so of
cliff, punctured with windows. Fantastic legends now clustered round these
relics. In one myth the men of old had made for themselves huge palaces which
could fly. For a thousand years (an aeon to these savages) men had dwelt in
unity, and in reverence of the gods; but at last they had become puffed up with
their own glory, and had undertaken to fly to the sun and moon and the field of
stars, to oust the gods from their bright home. But the gods sowed discord
among them, so that they fell a-fighting one another in the upper air, and
their swift palaces crashed down to the earth in thousands, to be monuments of
man's folly for ever after. In yet another saga it was the men themselves who
were winged. They inhabited dovecotes of masonry, with summits overtopping the
stars and outraging the gods; who therefore destroyed them. Thus in one form or
another, this theme of the downfall of the mighty fliers of old tyrannized over
these abject peoples. Their crude tillage, their hunting, their defence against
the reviving carnivora, were hampered at every turn by fear of offending the
gods by any innovation.</p>
<p><b>2. THE RISE OF PATAGONIA</b></p>
<p>As the centuries piled up, the human species had inevitably diverged once
more into many races in the various geographical areas. And each race consisted
of a swarm of tribes, each ignorant of all but its immediate neighbours. After
many millennia this vast diversification of stocks and cultures made it
possible for fresh biological transfusions and revivifications to occur. At
last, after many racial copulations, a people arose in whom the ancient dignity
of humanity was somewhat restored. Once more there was a real distinction
between the progressive and the backward regions, between "primitive" and
relatively enlightened cultures.</p>
<p>This rebirth occurred in the Southern Hemisphere. Complex climatic changes
had rendered the southern part of South America a fit nursery for civilization.
Further, an immense warping of the earth's crust to the east and south of
Patagonia, had turned what was once a relatively shallow region of the ocean
into a vast new land connecting America with Antarctica by way of the former
Falkland Islands and South Georgia, and stretching thence east and north-east
into the heart of the Atlantic.</p>
<p>It happened also that in South America the racial conditions were more
favourable than elsewhere. After the fall of the First World State the European
element in this region had dwindled, and the ancient "Indian" and Peruvian
stock had come into dominance. Many thousands of years earlier, this race had
achieved a primitive civilization of its own. After its ruin at the hands of
the Spaniards, it had seemed a broken and negligible thing; yet it had ever
kept itself curiously aloof in spirit from its conquerors. Though the two
stocks had mingled inextricably, there remained ever in the remoter parts of
this continent a way of life which was foreign to the dominant Americanism.
Superficially Americanized, it remained fundamentally "Indian" and
unintelligible to the rest of the world. Throughout the former civilization
this spirit had lain dormant like a seed in winter; but with the return of
barbarism it had sprouted, and quietly spread in all directions. From the
interaction of this ancient primitive culture and the many other racial
elements left over in the continent from the old cosmopolitan civilization,
civil life was to begin once more. Thus in a manner the Incas were at last to
triumph over their conquerors.</p>
<p>Various causes, then, combined in South America, and especially in the new
and virgin plains of Patagonia, to bring the First Dark Age to an end. The
great theme of mind began to repeat itself. But in a minor key. For a grave
disability hampered the Patagonians. They began to grow old before their
adolescence was completed. In the days of Einstein, an individual's youth
lasted some twenty-five years, and under the World State it had been
artificially doubled. After the downfall of civilization the increasing natural
brevity of the individual life was no longer concealed by artifice, and at the
end of the First Dark Age a boy of fifteen was already settling into middle
age. Patagonian civilization at its height afforded considerable ease and
security of life, and enabled man to live to seventy or even eighty; but the
period of sensitive and supple youth remained at the very best little more than
a decade and a half. Thus the truly young were never able to contribute to
culture before they were already at heart middle-aged. At fifteen their bones
were definitely becoming brittle, their hair grizzled, their faces lined. Their
joints and muscles were stiffening, their brains were no longer quick to learn
new adjustments, their fervour was evaporating.</p>
<p>It may seem strange that under these circumstances any kind of civilization
could be achieved by the race, that any generation should ever have been able
to do more than learn the tricks of its elders. Yet in fact, though progress
was never swift, it was steady. For though these beings lacked much of the
vigour of youth, they were compensated somewhat by escaping much of youth's
fevers and distractions. The First Men, in fact, were now a race whose wild
oats had been sown; and though their youthful escapades had somewhat crippled
them, they had now the advantage of sobriety and singleness of purpose. Though
doomed by lassitude, and a certain fear of extravagance, to fall short of the
highest achievements of their predecessors, they avoided much of the wasteful
incoherence and mental conflict which had tortured the earlier civilization at
its height, though not in its decline. Moreover, because their animal nature
was somewhat subdued, the Patagonians were more capable of dispassionate
cognition, and more inclined toward intellectualism. They were a people in whom
rational behaviour was less often subverted by passion, though more liable to
fail through mere indolence or faint-heartedness. Though they found detachment
relatively easy, theirs was the detachment of mere lassitude, not the leap from
the prison of life's cravings into a more spacious world.</p>
<p>One source of the special character of the Patagonian mind was that in it
the sexual impulse was relatively weak. Many obscure causes had helped to
temper that lavish sexuality in respect of which the first human species
differed from all other animals, even the continuously sexual apes. These
causes were diverse, but they combined to produce in the last phase of the life
of the species a general curtailment of excess energy. In the Dark Age the
severity of the struggle for existence had thrust the sexual interest back
almost into the subordinate place which it occupies in the animal mind. Coitus
became a luxury only occasionally desired, while self-preservation had become
once more an urgent and ever-present necessity. When at last life began to be
easier, sexuality remained in partial eclipse, for the forces of racial
"senescence" were at work. Thus the Patagonian culture differed in mood from
all the earlier cultures of the First Men. Hitherto it had been the clash of
sexuality and social taboo that had generated half the fervour and half the
delusions of the race. The excess energy of a victorious species, directed by
circumstance into the great river of sex, and dammed by social convention, had
been canalized for a thousand labours. And though often it would break loose
and lay all waste before it, in the main it had been turned to good account. At
all times indeed, it had been prone to escape in all directions and carve out
channels for itself, as a lopped tree stump sends forth not one but a score of
shoots. Hence the richness, diversity, incoherence, violent and uncomprehended
cravings and enthusiasms, of the earlier peoples. In the Patagonians there was
no such luxuriance. That they were not highly sexual was not in itself a
weakness. What mattered was that the springs of energy which formerly happened
to flood into the channel of sex were themselves impoverished.</p>
<p>Conceive, then, a small and curiously sober people established east of the
ancient Bahia Blanca, and advancing century by century over the plains and up
the valleys. In time it reached and encircled the heights which were once the
island of South Georgia, while to the north and west it spread into the
Brazilian highlands and over the Andes. Definitely of higher type than any of
their neighbours, definitely more vigorous and acute, the Patagonians were
without serious rivals. And since by temperament they were peaceable and
conciliatory, their cultural progress was little delayed, either by military
imperialism or internal strife. Like their predecessors in the northern
hemisphere, they passed through phases of disruption and union, retrogression
and regeneration; but their career was on the whole more steadily progressive,
and less dramatic, than anything that had occurred before. Earlier peoples had
leapt from barbarism to civil life and collapsed again within a thousand years.
The slow march of the Patagonians took ten times as long to pass from a tribal
to a civic organization.</p>
<p>Eventually they comprised a vast and highly organized community of
autonomous provinces, whose political and cultural centre lay upon the new
coast north-east of the ancient Falkland Islands, while its barbarian outskirts
included much of Brazil and Peru. The absence of serious strife between the
various parts of this "empire" was due partly to an innately pacific
disposition, partly to a genius for organization. These influences were
strengthened by a curiously potent tradition of cosmopolitanism, or human
unity, which had been born in the agony of disunion before the days of the
World State, and was so burnt into men's hearts that it survived as an element
of myth even through the Dark Age. So powerful was this tradition, that even
when the sailing ships of Patagonia had founded colonies in remote Africa and
Australia, these new communities remained at heart one with the mother country.
Even when the almost Nordic culture of the new and temperate Antarctic coasts
had outshone the ancient centre, the political harmony of the race was never in
danger.</p>
<p><b>3. THE CULT OF YOUTH</b></p>
<p>The Patagonians passed through all the spiritual phases that earlier races
had experienced, but in a distinctive manner. They had their primitive tribal
religion, derived from the dark past, and based on the fear of natural forces.
They had their monotheistic impersonation of Power as a vindictive Creator.
Their most adored racial hero was a god-man who abolished the old religion of
fear. They had their phases, also, of devout ritual and their phases of
rationalism, and again their phases of empirical curiosity.</p>
<p>Most significant for the historian who would understand their special
mentality is the theme of the god-man; so curiously did it resemble, yet differ
from, similar themes in earlier cultures of the first human species. He was
conceived as eternally adolescent, and as mystically the son of all men and
women. Far from being the Elder Brother, he was the Favourite Child; and indeed
he epitomizes that youthful energy and enthusiasm which the race now guessed
was slipping away from it. Though the sexual interest of this people was weak,
the parental interest was curiously strong. But the worship of the Favourite
Son was not merely parental; it expressed also both the individual's craving
for his own lost youth, and his obscure sense that the race itself was
senescent.</p>
<p>It was believed that the prophet had actually lived a century as a fresh
adolescent. He was designated the Boy who Refused to Grow Up. And this vigour
of will was possible to him, it was said, because in him the feeble vitality of
the race was concentrated many millionfold. For he was the fruit of all
parental passion that ever was and would be; and as such he was divine.
Primarily he was the Son of Man, but also he was God. For God, in this
religion, was no prime Creator but the fruit of man's endeavour. The Creator
was brute power, which had quite inadvertently begotten a being nobler than
itself. God, the adorable, was the eternal outcome of man's labour in time, the
eternally realized promise of what man himself should become. Yet though this
cult was based on the will for a young-hearted future, it was also overhung by
a dread, almost at times a certainty, that in fact such a future would never
be, that the race was doomed to grow old and die, that spirit could never
conquer the corruptible flesh, but must fade and vanish. Only by taking to
heart the message of the Divine Boy, it was said, could man hope to escape this
doom.</p>
<p>Such was the legend. It is instructive to examine the reality. The actual
individual, in whom this myth of the Favourite Son was founded, was indeed
remarkable. Born of shepherd parents among the Southern Andes, he had first
become famous as the leader of a romantic "youth movement"; and it was this
early stage of his career that won him followers. He urged the young to set an
example to the old, to live their own life undaunted by conventions, to enjoy,
to work hard but briefly, to be loyal comrades. Above all, he preached the
religious duty of remaining young in spirit. No one, he said, need grow old, if
he willed earnestly not to do so, if he would but keep his soul from falling
asleep, his heart open to all rejuvenating influences and shut to every breath
of senility. The delight of soul in soul, he said, was the great rejuvenator;
it re-created both lover and beloved. If Patagonians would only appreciate each
other's beauty without jealousy, the race would grow young again. And the
mission of his ever-increasing Band of Youth was nothing less than the
rejuvenation of man.</p>
<p>The propagation of this attractive gospel was favoured by a seeming miracle.
The prophet turned out to be biologically unique among Patagonians. When many
of his coevals were showing signs of senescence, he remained physically young.
Also he possessed a sexual vigour which to the Patagonians seemed miraculous.
And since sexual taboo was unknown, he exercised himself so heartily in
love-making, that he had paramours in every village, and presently his
offspring were numbered in hundreds. In this respect his followers strove hard
to live up to him, though with small success. But it was not only physically
that the prophet remained young. He preserved also a striking youthful agility
of mind. His sexual prodigality, though startling to his contemporaries, was in
him a temperate overflow of surplus energy. Far from exhausting him, it
refreshed him. Presently, however, this exuberance gave place to a more sober
life of work and meditation. It was in this period that he began to
differentiate himself mentally from his fellows. For at twenty-five, when most
Patagonians were deeply settled into a mental groove, he was still battling
with successive waves of ideas, and striking out into the unknown. Not till he
was forty, and still physically in earlier prime, did he gather his strength
and deliver himself of his mature gospel. This, his considered view of
existence, turned out to be almost unintelligible to Patagonians. Though in a
sense it was an expression of their own culture, it was an expression upon a
plane of vitality to which very few of them could ever reach.</p>
<p>The climax came when, during a ceremony in the supreme temple of the capital
city, while the worshippers were all prostrated before the hideous image of the
Creator, the ageless prophet strode up to the altar, regarded first the
congregation and then the god, burst into a hearty peal of laughter, slapped
the image resoundingly, and cried, "Ugly, I salute you! Not as almighty, but as
the greatest of all jokers. To have such a face, and yet to be admired for it!
To be so empty, and yet so feared!" Instantly there was a hubbub. But such was
the young iconoclast's god-like radiance, confidence, unexpectedness, and such
his reputation as the miraculous Boy, that when he turned upon the crowd, they
fell silent, and listened to his scolding.</p>
<p>"Fools!" he cried. "Senile infants! If God really likes your adulation, and
all this hugger-mugger, it is because he enjoys the joke against you, and
against himself, too. You are too serious, yet not serious enough; too solemn,
and all for puerile ends. You are so eager for life, that you cannot live. You
cherish your youth so much that it flies from you. When I was a boy, I said,
'Let us keep young'; and you applauded, and went about hugging your toys and
refusing to grow up. What I said was not bad for a boy, but it was not enough.
Now I am a man; and I say, 'For God's sake, grow up! Of course we must keep
young; but it is useless to keep young if we do not also grow up, and never
stop growing up. To keep young, surely, is just to keep supple and keen; and to
grow up is not at all a mere sinking into stiffness and into disillusion, but a
rising into ever finer skill in all the actions of the game of living. There is
something else, too, which is a part of growing up--to see that life is really,
after all, a game; a terribly serious game, no doubt, but none the less a game.
When we play a game, as it should be played, we strain every muscle to win; but
all the while we care less for winning than for the game. And we play the
better for it. When barbarians play against a Patagonian team, they forget that
it is a game, and go mad for victory. And then how we despise them! If they
find themselves losing, they turn savage; if winning, blatant. Either way, the
game is murdered, and they cannot see that they are slaughtering a lovely
thing. How they pester and curse the umpire, too! I have done that myself, of
course, before now; not in games but in life. I have actually cursed the umpire
of life. Better so, anyhow, than to insult him with presents, in the hope of
being favoured; which is what you are doing here, with your salaams and your
vows. I never did that. I merely hated him. Then later I learned to laugh at
him, or rather at the thing you set up in his place. But now at last I see him
clearly, and laugh with him, at myself, for having missed the spirit of the
game. But as for you! Coming here to fawn and whine and cadge favours of the
umpire!"</p>
<p>At this point the people rushed toward him to seize him. But he checked them
with a young laugh that made them love while they hated. He spoke again.</p>
<p>"I want to tell you how I came to learn my lesson. I have a queer love for
clambering about the high mountains; and once when I was up among the
snow-fields and precipices of Aconcagua, I was caught in a blizzard. Perhaps
some of you may know what storms can be like in the mountains. The air became a
hurtling flood of snow. I was swallowed up and carried away. After many hours
of floundering, I fell into a snow-drift. I tried to rise, but fell again and
again, till my head was buried. The thought of death enraged me, for there was
still so much that I wanted to do. I struggled frantically, vainly. Then
suddenly-- how can I put it?--I saw the game that I was losing, and it was
good. Good, no less to lose than to win. For it was the game, now, not victory,
that mattered. Hitherto I had been blindfold, and a slave to victory; suddenly
I was free, and with sight. For now I saw myself, and all of us, through the
eyes of the umpire. It was as though a play-actor were to see the whole play,
with his own part in it, through the author's eyes, from the auditorium. Here
was I, acting the part of a rather fine man who had come to grief through his
own carelessness before his work was done. For me, a character in the play, the
situation was hideous; yet for me, the spectator, it had become excellent,
within a wider excellence. I saw that it was equally so with all of us, and
with all the worlds. For I seemed to see a thousand worlds taking part with us
in the great show. And I saw everything through the calm eyes, the exultant,
almost derisive, yet not unkindly, eyes of the playwright.</p>
<p>"Well, it had seemed that my exit had come; but no, there was still a cue
for me. Somehow I was so strengthened by this new view of things that I
struggled out of the snow-drift. And here I am once more. But I am a new man.
My spirit is free. While I was a boy, I said, 'Grow more alive'; but in those
days I never guessed that there was an aliveness far intenser than youth's
flicker, a kind of still incandescence. Is there no one here who knows what I
mean? No one who at least <i>desires</i> this keener living? The first step is
to outgrow this adulation of life itself, and this cadging obsequiousness
toward Power. Come! Put it away! Break the ridiculous image in your hearts, as
I now smash this idol."</p>
<p>So saying he picked up a great candlestick and shattered the image. Once
more there was an uproar, and the temple authorities had him arrested. Not long
afterwards he was tried for sacrilege and executed. For this final extravagance
was but the climax of many indiscretions, and those in power were glad to have
so obvious a pretext for extinguishing this brilliant but dangerous
lunatic.</p>
<p>But the cult of the Divine Boy had already become very popular, for the
earlier teaching of the prophet expressed the fundamental craving of the
Patagonians. Even his last and perplexing message was accepted by his
followers, though without real understanding. Emphasis was laid upon the act of
iconoclasm, rather than upon the spirit of his exhortation.</p>
<p>Century by century, the new religion, for such it was, spread over the
civilized world. And the race seemed to have been spiritually rejuvenated to
some extent by widespread fervour. Physically also a certain rejuvenation took
place; for before his death this unique biological "sport," or throw-back to an
earlier vitality, produced some thousands of sons and daughters; and they in
turn propagated the good seed far and wide. Undoubtedly it was this new strain
that brought about the golden age of Patagonia, greatly improving the material
conditions of the race, carrying civilization into the northern continents and
attacking problems of science and philosophy with renewed ardour.</p>
<p>But the revival was not permanent. The descendants of the prophet prided
themselves too much on violent living. Physically, sexually, mentally, they
over-reached themselves and became enfeebled. Moreover, little by little the
potent strain was diluted and overwhelmed by intercourse with the greater
volume of the innately "senile;" so that, after a few centuries, the race
returned to its middle-aged mood. At the same time the vision of the Divine Boy
was gradually distorted. At first it had been youth's ideal of what youth
should be, a pattern woven of fanatical loyalty, irresponsible gaiety,
comradeship, physical gusto, and not a little pure devilry. But insensibly it
became a pattern of that which was expected of youth by sad maturity. The
violent young hero was sentimentalized into the senior's vision of childhood,
na&iuml;ve and docile. All that had been violent was forgotten; and what was
left became a whimsical and appealing stimulus to the parental impulses. At the
same time this phantom was credited with all the sobriety and caution which are
so easily appreciated by the middle-aged.</p>
<p>Inevitably this distorted image of youth became an incubus upon the actual
young men and women of the race. It was held up as the model social virtue; but
it was a model to which they could never conform without doing violence to
their best nature, since it was not any longer an expression of youth at all.
Just as, in an earlier age, women had been idealized and at the same time
hobbled, so now, youth.</p>
<p>Some few, indeed, throughout the history of Patagonia, attained a clearer
vision of the prophet. Fewer still were able to enter into the spirit of his
final message, in which his enduring youthfulness raised him to a maturity
alien to Patagonia. For the tragedy of this people was not so much their
"senescence" as their arrested growth. Feeling themselves old, they yearned to
be young again. But, through fixed immaturity of mind, they could never
recognize that the true, though unlooked-for, fulfillment of youth's passionate
craving is not the mere achievement of the ends of youth itself, but an advance
into a more awake and far-seeing vitality.</p>
<p><b>4. THE CATASTROPHE</b></p>
<p>It was in these latter days that the Patagonians discovered the civilization
that had preceded them. In rejecting the ancient religion of fear, they had
abandoned also the legend of a remote magnificence, and had come to regard
themselves as pioneers of the mind. In the new continent which was their
homeland there were, of course, no relics of the ancient order; and the ruins
that besprinkled the older regions had been explained as mere freaks of nature.
But latterly, with the advance of natural knowledge, archaeologists had
reconstructed something of the forgotten world. And the crisis came when, in
the basement of a shattered pylon in China, they found a store of metal plates
(constructed of an immensely durable artificial element), on which were
embossed crowded lines of writing. These objects were, in fact, blocks from
which books were printed a thousand centuries earlier. Other deposits were soon
discovered, and bit by bit the dead language was deciphered. Within three
centuries the outline of the ancient culture was laid bare; and presently the
whole history of man's rise and ruin fell upon this latter-day civilization
with crushing effect, as though an ancient pylon were to have fallen on a
village of wigwams at its foot. The pioneers discovered that all the ground
which they had so painfully won from the wild had been conquered long ago, and
lost; that on the material side their glory was nothing beside the glory of the
past; and that in the sphere of mind they had established only a few scattered
settlements where formerly was an empire. The Patagonian system of natural
knowledge had been scarcely further advanced than that of pre-Newtonian Europe.
They had done little more than conceive the scientific spirit and unlearn a few
superstitions. And now suddenly they came into a vast inheritance of
thought.</p>
<p>This in itself was a gravely disturbing experience for a people of strong
intellectual interest. But even more overwhelming was the discovery, borne in
on them in the course of their research, that the past had been not only
brilliant but crazy, and that in the long run the crazy element had completely
triumphed. For the Patagonian mind was by now too sane and empirical to accept
the ancient knowledge without testing it. The findings of the archaeologists
were handed over to the physicists and other scientists, and the firm thought
and valuation of Europe and America at their zenith were soon distinguished
from the degenerate products of the World State.</p>
<p>The upshot of this impact with a more developed civilization was dramatic
and tragic. It divided the Patagonians into loyalists and rebels, into those
who clung to the view that the new learning was a satanic lie, and those who
faced the facts. To the former party the facts were thoroughly depressing; the
latter, though overawed, found in them a compelling majesty, and also a hope.
That the earth was a mote among the star-clouds was the least subversive of the
new doctrines, for the Patagonians had already abandoned the geocentric view.
What was so distressing to the reactionaries was the theory that an earlier
race had long ago possessed and spent the vitality that they themselves so
craved. The party of progress, on the other hand, urged that this vast new
knowledge must be used; and that, thus equipped, Patagonia might compensate for
lack of youthfulness by superior sanity.</p>
<p>This divergence of will resulted in a physical conflict such as had never
before occurred in the Patagonian world. Something like nationalism emerged.
The more vigorous Antarctic coasts became modern, while Patagonia itself clung
to the older culture. There were several wars, but as physics and chemistry
advanced in Antarctica, the Southerners were able to devise engines of war
which the Northerners could not resist. In a couple of centuries the new
"culture" had triumphed. The world was once more unified.</p>
<p>Hitherto Patagonian civilization had been of a mediaeval type. Under the
influence of physics and chemistry it began to change. Wind and water-power
began to be used for the generation of electricity. Vast mining operations were
undertaken in search of the metals and other minerals which no longer occurred
at easy depths. Architecture began to make use of steel. Electrically driven
aeroplanes were made, but without real success. And this failure was
symptomatic; for the Patagonians were not sufficiently foolhardy to master
aviation, even had their planes been more efficient. They themselves naturally
attributed their failure wholly to lack of a convenient source of power, such
as the ancient petrol. Indeed this lack of oil and coal hampered them at every
turn. Volcanic power, of course, was available; but, never having been really
mastered by the more resourceful ancients, it defeated the Patagonians
completely.</p>
<p>As a matter of fact, in wind and water they had all that was needed. The
resources of the whole planet were available, and the world population was less
than a hundred million. With this source alone they could never, indeed, have
competed in luxury with the earlier World State, but they might well have
achieved something like Utopia.</p>
<p>But this was not to be. Industrialism, though accompanied by only a slow
increase of population, produced in time most of the social discords which had
almost ruined their predecessors. To them it appeared that all their troubles
would be solved if only their material power were far ampler. This strong and
scarcely rational conviction was a symptom of their ruling obsession, the
craving for increased vitality.</p>
<p>Under these circumstances it was natural that one event and one strand of
ancient history should fascinate them. The secret of limitless material power
had once been known and lost. Why should not Patagonians rediscover it, and use
it, with their superior sanity, to bring heaven on earth? The ancients, no
doubt, did well to forgo this dangerous source of power; but the Patagonians,
level-headed and single-minded, need have no fear. Some, indeed, considered it
less important to seek power than to find a means of checking biological
senescence; but, unfortunately, though physical science had advanced so
rapidly, the more subtle biological sciences had remained backward, largely
because among the ancients themselves little more had been done than to prepare
their way. Thus it happened that the most brilliant minds of Patagonia,
fascinated by the prize at stake, concentrated upon the problem of matter. The
state encouraged this research by founding and endowing laboratories whose
avowed end was this sole work.</p>
<p>The problem was difficult, and the Patagonian scientists, though
intelligent, were somewhat lacking in grit. Only after some five hundred years
of intermittent research was the secret discovered, or partially so. It was
found possible, by means of a huge initial expenditure of energy, to annihilate
the positive and negative electric charges in one not very common kind of atom.
But this limitation mattered not at all; the human race now possessed an
inexhaustible source of power which could be easily manipulated and easily
controlled. But though controllable, the new gift was not foolproof; and there
was no guarantee that those who used it might not use it foolishly, or
inadvertently let it get out of hand.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, at the time when the new source of energy was discovered, the
Patagonians were more divided than of old. Industrialism, combined with the
innate docility of the race, had gradually brought about a class cleavage more
extreme even than that of the ancient world, though a cleavage of a curiously
different kind. The strongly parental disposition of the average Patagonian
prevented the dominant class from such brutal exploitation as had formerly
occurred. Save during the first century of industrialism, there was no serious
physical suffering among the proletariat. A paternal government saw to it that
all Patagonians were at least properly fed and clothed, that all had ample
leisure and opportunities of amusement. At the same time they saw to it also
that the populace became more and more regimented. As in the First World State,
civil authority was once more in the hands of a small group of masters of
industry, but with a difference. Formerly the dominant motive of big business
had been an almost mystical passion for the creation of activity; now the
ruling minority regarded themselves as standing towards the populace <i>in loco
parentis</i>, and aimed at creating "a young-hearted people, simple, gay,
vigorous and loyal." Their ideal of the state was something between a
preparatory school under a sympathetic but strict adult staff, and a
joint-stock company, in which the shareholders retained only one function, to
delegate their powers thankfully to a set of brilliant directors.</p>
<p>That the system had worked so well and survived so long was due not only to
innate Patagonian docility, but also to the principle by which the governing
class recruited itself. One lesson at least had been learnt from the bad
example of the earlier civilization, namely respect for intelligence. By a
system of careful testing, the brightest children were selected from all
classes and trained to be governors. Even the children of the governors
themselves were subjected to the same examination, and only those who qualified
were sent to the "schools for young governors." Some corruption no doubt
existed, but in the main this system worked. The children thus selected were
very carefully trained in theory and practice, as organizers, scientists,
priests and logicians.</p>
<p>The less brilliant children of the race were educated very differently from
the young governors. It was impressed on them that they were less able than the
others. They were taught to respect the governors as superior beings, who were
called upon to serve the community in specially skilled and arduous work,
simply because of their ability. It would not be true to say that the less
intelligent were educated merely to be slaves; rather they were expected to be
the docile, diligent and happy sons and daughters of the fatherland. They were
taught to be loyal and optimistic. They were given vocational training for
their various occupations, and encouraged to use their intelligence as much as
possible upon the plane suited to it; but the affairs of the state and the
problems of religion and theoretical science were strictly forbidden. The
official doctrine of the beauty of youth was fundamental in their education.
They were taught all the conventional virtues of youth, and in particular
modesty and simplicity. As a class they were extremely healthy, for physical
training was a very important part of education in Patagonia. Moreover, the
universal practice of sun-bathing, which was a religious rite, was especially
encouraged among the proletariat, as it was believed to keep the body "young"
and the mind placid. The leisure of the governed class was devoted mostly to
athletics and other sport, physical and mental. Music and other forms of art
were also practised, for these were considered fit occupations for juveniles.
The government exercised a censorship over artistic products, but it was seldom
enforced; for the common folk of Patagonia were mostly too phlegmatic and too
busy to conceive anything but the most obvious and respectable art. They were
fully occupied with work and pleasure. They suffered no sexual restraints.
Their impersonal interests were satisfied with the official religion of
youth-worship and loyalty to the community.</p>
<p>This placid condition lasted for some four hundred years after the first
century of industrialism. But as time passed the mental difference between the
two classes increased. Superior intelligence became rarer and rarer among the
proletariat; the governors were recruited more and more from their own
offspring, until finally they became an hereditary caste. The gulf widened. The
governors began to lose all mental contact with the governed. They made a
mistake which could never have been committed had their psychology kept pace
with their other sciences. Ever confronted with the workers' lack of
intelligence, they came to treat them more and more as children, and forgot
that, though simple, they were grown men and women who needed to feel
themselves as free partners in a great human enterprise. Formerly this illusion
of responsibility had been sedulously encouraged. But as the gulf widened the
proletarians were treated rather as infants than as adolescents, rather as
well-cared-for domestic animals than as human beings. Their lives became more
and more minutely, though benevolently, systematized for them. At the same time
less care was taken to educate them up to an understanding and appreciation of
the common human enterprise. Under these circumstances the temper of the people
changed. Though their material condition was better than had ever been known
before, save under the First World State, they became listless, discontented,
mischievous, ungrateful to their superiors.</p>
<p>Such was the state of affairs when the new source of energy was discovered.
The world community consisted of two very different elements, first a small,
highly intellectual caste, passionately devoted to the state and to the
advancement of culture amongst themselves; and, second, a much more numerous
population of rather obtuse, physically well-cared-for, and spiritually starved
industrialists. A serious clash between the two classes had already occurred
over the use of a certain drug, favoured by the people for the bliss it
produced, forbidden by the governors for its evil after-effects. The drug was
abolished; but the motive was misinterpreted by the proletariat. This incident
brought to the surface a hate that had for long been gathering strength in the
popular mind, though unwittingly.</p>
<p>When rumour got afoot that in future mechanical power would be unlimited,
the people expected a millennium. Every one would have his own limitless source
of energy. Work would cease. Pleasure would be increased to infinity.
Unfortunately the first use made of the new power was extensive mining at
unheard-of depths in search of metals and other minerals which had long ago
ceased to be available near the surface. This involved difficult and dangerous
work for the miners. There were casualties. Riots occurred. The new power was
used upon the rioters with murderous effect, the governors declaring that,
though their paternal hearts bled for their foolish children, this chastisement
was necessary to prevent worse evils. The workers were urged to face their
troubles with that detachment which the Divine Boy had preached in his final
phase; but this advice was greeted with the derision which it deserved. Further
strikes, riots, assassinations. The proletariat had scarcely more power against
their masters than sheep against the shepherd, for they had not the brains for
large-scale organization. But it was through one of these pathetically futile
rebellions that Patagonia was at last destroyed.</p>
<p>A petty dispute had occurred in one of the new mines. The management refused
to allow miners to teach their trade to their sons; for vocational education,
it was said, should be carried on professionally. Indignation against this
interference with parental authority caused a sudden flash of the old rage. A
power unit was seized, and after a bout of insane monkeying with the machinery,
the mischief-makers inadvertently got things into such a state that at last the
awful djin of physical energy was able to wrench off his fetters and rage over
the planet. The first explosion was enough to blow up the mountain range above
the mine. In those mountains were huge tracts of the critical element, and
these were detonated by rays from the initial explosion. This sufficed to set
in action still more remote tracts of the elements. An incandescent hurricane
spread over the whole of Patagonia, reinforcing itself with fresh atomic fury
wherever it went, It raged along the line of the Andes and the Rockies,
scorching both continents with its heat. It undermined and blew up the Behring
Straits, spread like a brood of gigantic fiery serpents into Asia, Europe and
Africa. Martians, already watching the earth as a cat a bird beyond its spring,
noted that the brilliance of the neighbour planet was suddenly enhanced.
Presently the oceans began to boil here and there with submarine commotion.
Tidal waves mangled the coasts and floundered up the valleys. But in time the
general sea level sank considerably through evaporation and the opening of
chasms in the ocean floor. All volcanic regions became fantastically active.
The polar caps began to melt, but prevented the arctic regions from being
calcined like the rest of the planet. The atmosphere was a continuous dense
cloud of moisture, fumes and dust, churned in ceaseless hurricanes. As the fury
of the electromagnetic collapse proceeded, the surface temperature of the
planet steadily increased, till only in the Arctic and a few favoured corners
of the sub-Arctic could life persist.</p>
<p>Patagonia's death agony was brief. In Africa and Europe a few remote
settlements escaped the actual track of the eruptions, but succumbed in a few
weeks to the hurricanes of steam. Of the two hundred million members of the
human race, all were burnt or roasted or suffocated within three months--all
but thirty-five, who happened to be in the neighbourhood of the North Pole.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER VI. TRANSITION</h3>
<p><b>1. THE FIRST MEN AT BAY</b></p>
<p>By one of those rare tricks of fortune, which are as often favourable as
hostile to humanity, an Arctic exploration ship had recently been embedded in
the pack-ice for a long drift across the Polar sea. She was provisioned for
four years, and when the catastrophe occurred she had already been at sea for
six months. She was a sailing vessel; the expedition had been launched before
it was practicable to make use of the new source of power. The crew consisted
of twenty-eight men and seven women. Individuals of an earlier and more sexual
race, proportioned thus, in such close proximity and isolation, would almost
certainly have fallen foul of one another sooner or later. But to Patagonians
the arrangement was not intolerable. Besides managing the whole domestic side
of the expedition, the seven women were able to provide moderate sexual delight
for all, for in this people the female sexuality was much less reduced than the
male. There were, indeed, occasional jealousies and feuds in the little
community, but these were subordinated to a strong <i>esprit de corps</i>. The
whole company had, of course, been very carefully chosen for comradeship,
loyalty, and health, as well as for technical skill. All claimed descent from
the Divine Boy. All were of the governing class. One quaint expression of the
strongly parental Patagonian temperament was that a pair of diminutive pet
monkeys was taken with the expedition.</p>
<p>The crew's first intimation of the catastrophe was a furious hot wind that
melted the surface of the ice. The sky turned black. The Arctic summer became a
weird and sultry night, torn by fantastic thunderstorms. Rain crashed on the
ship's deck in a continuous waterfall. Clouds of pungent smoke and dust
irritated the eyes and nose. Submarine earthquakes buckled the pack-ice.</p>
<p>A year after the explosion, the ship was labouring in tempestuous and
berg-strewn water near the Pole. The bewildered little company now began to
feel its way south; but, as they proceeded, the air became more fiercely hot
and pungent, the storms more savage. Another twelve months were spent in
beating about the Polar sea, ever and again retreating north from the
impossible southern weather. But at length conditions improved slightly, and
with great difficulty these few survivors of the human race approached their
original objective in Norway, to find that the lowlands were a scorched and
lifeless desert, while on the heights the valley vegetation was already
struggling to establish itself, in patches of sickly green. Their base town had
been flattened by a hurricane, and the skeletons of its population still lay in
the streets. They coasted further south. Everywhere the same desolation. Hoping
that the disturbance might be merely local, they headed round the British Isles
and doubled back on France. But France turned out to be an appalling chaos of
volcanoes. With a change of wind, the sea around them was infuriated with
falling debris, often red hot. Miraculously they got away and fled north again.
After creeping along the Siberian coast they were at last able to find a
tolerable resting-place at the mouth of one of the great rivers. The ship was
brought to anchor, and the crew rested. They were a diminished company, for six
men and two women had been lost on the voyage.</p>
<p>Conditions even here must recently have been far more severe, since much of
the vegetation had been scorched, and dead animals were frequent. But evidently
the first fury of the vast explosion was now abating.</p>
<p>By this time the voyagers were beginning to realize the truth. They
remembered the half jocular prophecies that the new power would sooner or later
wreck the planet, prophecies which had evidently been all too well founded.
There had been a world-wide disaster; and they themselves had been saved only
by their remoteness and the Arctic ice from a fate that had probably
overwhelmed all their fellow men.</p>
<p>So desperate was the outlook for a handful of exhausted persons on a
devastated planet, that some urged suicide. All dallied with the idea, save a
woman, who had unexpectedly become pregnant. In her the strong parental
disposition of her race was now awakened, and she implored the party to make a
fight for the sake of her child. Reminded that the baby would only be born into
a life of hardship, she reiterated with more persistence than reason, "My baby
must live."</p>
<p>The men shrugged their shoulders. But as their tired bodies recovered after
the recent struggle, they began to realize the solemnity of their position. It
was one of the biologists who expressed a thought which was already present to
all. There was at least a chance of survival, and if ever men and women had a
sacred duty, surely these had, for they were now the sole trustees of the human
spirit. At whatever cost of toil and misery they must people the earth
again.</p>
<p>This common purpose now began to exalt them, and brought them all into a
rare intimacy. "We are ordinary folk," said the biologist, "but somehow we must
become great." And they were, indeed, in a manner made great by their unique
position. In generous minds a common purpose and common suffering breed a deep
passion of comradeship, expressed perhaps not in words but in acts of devotion.
These, in their loneliness and their sense of obligation, experienced not only
comradeship, but a vivid communion with one another as instruments of a sacred
cause.</p>
<p>The party now began to build a settlement beside the river. Though the whole
area had, of course, been devastated, vegetation had soon revived, from roots
and seeds, buried or wind borne. The countryside was now green with those
plants that had been able to adjust themselves to the new climate. Animals had
suffered far more seriously. Save for the Arctic fox, a few small rodents, and
one herd of reindeer, none were left but the dwellers in the actual Arctic
seas, the Polar bear, various cetaceans, and seals. Of fish there were plenty.
Birds in great numbers had crowded out of the south, and had died off in
thousands through lack of food, but certain species were already adjusting
themselves to the new environment. Indeed, the whole remaining fauna and flora
of the planet was passing through a phase of rapid and very painful
readjustment. Many well-established species had wholly failed to get a footing
in the new world, while certain hitherto insignificant types were able to forge
ahead.</p>
<p>The party found it possible to grow maize and even rice from seed brought
from a ruined store in Norway. But the great heat, frequent torrential rain,
and lack of sunlight, made agriculture laborious and precarious. Moreover, the
atmosphere had become seriously impure, and the human organism had not yet
succeeded in adapting itself. Consequently the party were permanently tired and
liable to disease.</p>
<p>The pregnant woman had died in child-birth, but her baby lived. It became
the party's most sacred object, for it kindled in every mind the strong
parental disposition so characteristic of Patagonians.</p>
<p>Little by little the numbers of the settlement were reduced by sickness,
hurricanes and volcanic gases. But in time they achieved a kind of equilibrium
with their environment, and even a certain strenuous amenity of life. As their
prosperity increased, however, their unity diminished. Differences of
temperament began to be dangerous. Among the men two leaders had emerged, or
rather one leader and a critic. The original head of the expedition had proved
quite incapable of dealing with the new situation, and had at last committed
suicide. The company had then chosen the second navigating officer as their
chief, and had chosen him unanimously. The other born leader of the party was a
junior biologist, a man of very different type. The relations of these two did
much to determine the future history of man, and are worthy of study in
themselves; but here we can only glance at them. In all times of stress the
navigator's authority was absolute, for everything depended on his initiative
and heroic example. But in less arduous periods, murmurs arose against him for
exacting discipline when discipline seemed unnecessary. Between him and the
young biologist there grew up a strange blend of hostility and affection; for
the latter, though critical, loved and admired the other, and declared that the
survival of the party depended on this one man's practical genius.</p>
<p>Three years after their landing, the community, though reduced in numbers
and in vitality, was well established in a routine of hunting, agriculture and
building. Three fairly healthy infants rejoiced and exasperated their elders.
With security, the navigator's genius for action found less scope, while the
knowledge of the scientists became more valuable. Plant and poultry-breeding
were beyond the range of the heroic leader, and in prospecting for minerals he
was equally helpless. Inevitably as time passed he and the other navigators
grew restless and irritable; and at last, when the leader decreed that the
party should take to the ship and explore for better land, a serious dispute
occurred. All the sea-farers applauded; but the scientists, partly through
clearer understanding of the calamity that had befallen the planet, partly
through repugnance at the hardship involved, refused to go.</p>
<p>Violent emotions were aroused; but both sides restrained themselves through
well-tried mutual respect and loyalty to the community. Then suddenly sexual
passion set a light to the tinder. The woman who, by general consent, had come
to be queen of the settlement, and was regarded as sacred to the leader,
asserted her independence by sleeping with one of the scientists. The leader
surprised them, and in sudden rage killed the young man. The little community
at once fell into two armed factions, and more blood was shed. Very soon,
however, the folly and sacrilege of this brawl became evident to these few
survivors of a civilized race, and after a parley a grave decision was
made.</p>
<p>The company was to be divided. One party, consisting of five men and two
women, under the young biologist, was to remain in the settlement. The leader
himself, with the remaining nine men and two women, were to navigate the ship
toward Europe, in search of a better land. They promised to send word, if
possible, during the following year.</p>
<p>With this decision taken the two parties once more became amicable. All
worked to equip the pioneers. When at last it was the time of departure, there
was a solemn leave-taking. Every one was relieved at the cessation of a painful
incompatibility; but more poignant than relief was the distressed affection of
those who had so long been comrades in a sacred enterprise.</p>
<p>It was a parting even more momentous than was supposed. For from this act
arose at length two distinct human species.</p>
<p>Those who stayed behind heard no more of the wanderers, and finally
concluded that they had come to grief. But in fact they were driven West and
South-west past Iceland, now a cluster of volcanoes, to Labrador. On this
voyage through fantastic storms and oceanic convulsions they lost nearly half
their number, and were at last unable to work the ship. When finally they were
wrecked on a rocky coast, only the carpenter's mate, two women, and the pair of
monkeys succeeded in clambering ashore.</p>
<p>These found themselves in a climate far more sultry than Siberia; but like
Siberia, Labrador contained uplands of luxuriant vegetation. The man and his
two women had at first great difficulty in finding food, but in time they
adapted themselves to a diet of berries and roots. As the years passed,
however, the climate undermined their mentality and their descendants sank into
abject savagery, finally degenerating into a type that was human only in
respect of its ancestry.</p>
<p>The little Siberian settlement was now hard-pressed but single-minded.
Calculation had convinced the scientists that the planet would not return to
its normal state for some millions of years; for though the first and
superficial fury of the disaster had already ceased, the immense pent-up energy
of the central explosions would take millions of years to leak out through
volcanic vents. The leader of the party, by rare luck a man of genius,
conceived their situation thus. For millions of years the planet would be
uninhabitable save for a fringe of Siberian coast. The human race was doomed
for ages to a very restricted and uncongenial environment. All that could be
hoped for was the persistence of a mere remnant of civilized humanity, which
should be able to lie dormant until a more favourable epoch. With this end in
view the party must propagate itself, and make some possibility of cultured
life for its offspring. Above all it must record in some permanent form as much
as it could remember of Patagonian culture. "We are the germ," he said. "We
must play for safety, mark time, preserve man's inheritance. The chances
against us are almost overwhelming, but just possibly we shall win
through."</p>
<p>And so in fact they did. Several times almost exterminated at the outset,
these few harassed individuals preserved their spark of humanity. A close
inspection of their lives would reveal an intense personal drama; for, in spite
of the sacred purpose which united them, almost as muscles in one limb, they
were individuals of different temperaments. The children, moreover, caused
jealousy between their parentally hungry elders, There was ever a subdued, and
sometimes an open, rivalry to gain the affection of these young things, these
few and precious buds on the human stem. Also there was sharp disagreement
about their education. For though all the elders adored them simply for their
childishness, one at least, the visionary leader of the party, thought of them
chiefly as potential vessels of the human spirit, to be moulded strictly for
their great function. In this perpetual subdued antagonism of aims and
temperaments the little society lived from day to day, much as a limb functions
in the antagonism of its muscles.</p>
<p>The adults of the party devoted much of their leisure during the long
winters to the heroic labour of recording the outline of man's whole knowledge.
This task was very dear to the leader, but the others often grew weary of it.
To each person a certain sphere of culture was assigned; and after he or she
had thought out a section and scribbled it down on slate, it was submitted to
the company for criticism, and finally engraved deeply on tablets of hard
stone. Many thousands of such tablets were produced in the course of years, and
were stored in a cave which was carefully prepared for them. Thus was recorded
something of the history of the earth and of man, the outlines of physics,
chemistry, biology, psychology, and geometry. Each scribe set down also in some
detail a summary of his own special study, and added a personal manifesto of
his own views about existence. Much ingenuity was spent in devising a vast
pictorial dictionary and grammar, with which, it was hoped, the remote future
might interpret the whole library.</p>
<p>Years passed while this immense registration of human thought was still in
progress. The founders of the settlement grew feebler while the eldest of the
next generation were still adolescent. Of the two women, one had died and the
other was almost a cripple, both martyrs to the task of motherhood. A youth, an
infant boy, and four girls of various ages--on these the future of man now
depended. Unfortunately these precious beings had suffered from their very
preciousness. Their education had been bungled. They had been both pampered and
oppressed. Nothing was thought too good for them, but they were overwhelmed
with cherishing and teaching. Thus they came to hold the elders at arm's
length, and to weary of the ideals imposed on them. Brought into a ruined world
without their own consent, they refused to accept the crushing obligation
toward an improbable future. Hunting, and the daily struggle of a pioneering
age, afforded their spirits full exercise in courage, mutual loyalty, and
interest in one another's personality. They would live for the present only,
and for the tangible reality, not for a culture which they knew only by
hearsay. In particular, they loathed the hardship of engraving endless verbiage
upon granitic slabs.</p>
<p>The crisis came when the eldest girl had crossed the threshold of physical
maturity. The leader told her that it was her duty to begin bearing children at
once, and ordered her to have intercourse with her half-brother, his own son.
Having herself assisted at the last birth, which had destroyed her mother, she
refused; and when pressed she dropped her graving tool and fled. This was the
first serious act of rebellion. In a few years the older generation was deposed
from authority. A new way of life, more active, more dangerous, zestful and
careless, resulted in a lowering of the community's standard of comfort and
organization, but also in greater health and vitality. Experiments in plant and
stock-breeding were neglected, buildings went out of repair; but great feats of
hunting and exploration were undertaken. Leisure was given over to games of
hazard and calculation, to dancing, singing and romantic story-telling. Music
and romance, indeed, were now the main expression of the finer nature of these
beings, and became the vehicles of obscure religious experience. The
intellectualism of the elders was ridiculed. What could their poor sciences
tell of reality, of the many-faced, never-for-a-moment-the-same, superbly
inconsequent, and ever-living Real? Man's intelligence was all right for
hunting and tillage in the world of common sense; but if he rode it further
afield, he would find himself in a desert, and his soul would starve. Let him
live as nature prompted. Let him keep the young god in his heart alive. Let him
give free play to the struggling, irrational, dark vitality that sought to
realize itself in him not as logic but as beauty.</p>
<p>The tablets were now engraved only by the aged.</p>
<p>But one day, after the infant boy had reached the early Patagonian
adolescence, his curiosity was roused by the tail-like hind limbs of a seal.
The old people timidly encouraged him. He made other biological observations,
and was led on to envisage the whole drama of life on the planet, and to
conceive loyalty to the cause which they had served.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, sexual and parental nature had triumphed where schooling had
failed. The young things inevitably fell in love with each other, and in time
several infants appeared.</p>
<p>Thus, generation by generation, the little settlement maintained itself with
varying success, varying zestfulness, and varying loyalty toward the future.
With changing conditions the population fluctuated, sinking as low as two men
and one woman, but increasing gradually up to a few thousand, the limit set by
the food capacity of their strip of coast. In the long run, though
circumstances did not prevent material survival, they made for mental decline.
For the Siberian coast remained a tropical land bounded on the south by a
forest of volcanoes; and consequently in the long run the generations declined
in mental vigour and subtlety. This result was perhaps due in part to too
intensive inbreeding; but this factor had also one good effect. Though mental
vigour waned, certain desirable characteristics were consolidated. The founders
of the group represented the best remaining stock of the first human species.
They had been chosen for their hardihood and courage, their native loyalty,
their strong cognitive interest. Consequently, in spite of phases of
depression, the race not only survived but retained its curiosity and its group
feeling. Even while the ability of men decreased, their will to understand, and
their sense of racial unity, remained. Though their conception of man and the
universe gradually sank into crude myth, they preserved a strong unreasoning
loyalty towards the future, and toward the now sacred stone library which was
rapidly becoming unintelligible to them. For thousands and even millions of
years, after the species had materially changed its nature, there remained a
vague admiration for mental prowess, a confused tradition of a noble past, and
pathetic loyalty toward a still nobler future. Above all, internecine strife
was so rare that it served only to strengthen the clear will to preserve the
unity and harmony of the race.</p>
<p><b>2. THE SECOND DARK AGE</b></p>
<p>We must now pass rapidly over the Second Dark Age, observing merely those
influences which were to affect the future of humanity.</p>
<p>Century by century the pent energy of the vast explosion dispersed itself;
but not till many hundred thousand years had passed did the swarms of upstart
volcanoes begin to die, and not till after millions of years did the bulk of
the planet become once more a possible home for life.</p>
<p>During this period many changes took place. The atmosphere became clearer,
purer and less turbulent. With the fall of temperature, frost and snow appeared
occasionally in the Arctic regions, and in due course the Polar caps were
formed again. Meanwhile, ordinary geological processes, augmented by the
strains to which the planet was subjected by increased internal pressure, began
to change the continents. South America mostly collapsed into the hollows
blasted beneath it, but a new land rose to join Brazil with West Africa. The
East Indies and Australia became a continuous continent. The huge mass of
Thibet sank deeply into its disturbed foundations, lunged West, and buckled
Afghanistan into a range of peaks nearly forty thousand feet above the sea.
Europe sank under the Atlantic. Rivers writhed shiftingly hither and thither
upon the continents, like tortured worms. New alluvial areas were formed. New
strata were laid upon one another under new oceans. New animals and plants
developed from the few surviving Arctic species, and spread south through Asia
and America. In the new forests and grass-lands appeared various specialized
descendants of the reindeer, and swarms of rodents. Upon these preyed the large
and small descendants of the Arctic fox, of which one species, a gigantic
wolflike creature, rapidly became the "King of Beasts" in the new order, and
remained so, until it was ousted by the more slowly modified offspring of the
polar bears. A certain genus of seals, reverting to the ancient terrestrial
habit, had developed a slender snake-like body and an almost swift, and very
serpentine, mode of locomotion among the coastal sand-dunes. There it was wont
to stalk its rodent prey, and even follow them into their burrows. Everywhere
there were birds. Many of the places left vacant by the destruction of the
ancient fauna were now filled by birds which had discarded flight and developed
pedestrian habits. Insects, almost exterminated by the great conflagration, had
afterwards increased so rapidly, and had refashioned their types with such
versatility, that they soon reached almost to their ancient profusion. Even
more rapid was the establishment of the new micro-organisms. In general, among
all the beasts and plants of the earth there was a great change of habit, and a
consequent overlaying of old body-forms with new forms adapted to a new way of
life.</p>
<p>The two human settlements had fared very differently. That of Labrador,
oppressed by a more sweltering climate, and unsupported by the Siberian will to
preserve human culture, sank into animality; but ultimately it peopled the
whole West with swarming tribes. The human beings in Asia remained a mere
handful throughout the ten million years of the Second Dark Age. An incursion
of the sea cut them off from the south. The old Taimyr Peninsula, where their
settlements clustered, became the northern promontory of an island whose coasts
were the ancient valley-edges of the Yenessi, the Lower Tunguska and the Lena.
As the climate became less oppressive, the families spread toward the southern
coast of the island, but the sea checked them. Temperate conditions enabled
them to regain a certain degree of culture. But they had no longer the capacity
to profit much from the new clemency of nature, for the previous ages of
tropical conditions had undermined them. Moreover, toward the end of the ten
million years of the Second Dark Age, the Arctic climate spread south into
their island. Their crops failed, the rodents that formed their chief cattle
dwindled, their few herds of deer faded out through lack of food. Little by
little this scanty human race degenerated into a mere remnant of Arctic
savages. And so they remained for a million years. Psychologically they were so
crippled that they had almost completely lost the power of innovation. When
their sacred quarries in the hills were covered with ice, they had not the wit
to use stone from the valleys, but were reduced to making implements of bone.
Their language degenerated into a few grunts to signify important acts, and a
more complex system of emotional expressions. For emotionally these creatures
still preserved a certain refinement. Moreover, though they had almost wholly
lost the power of intelligent innovation, their instinctive responses were
often such as a more enlightened intelligence would justify. They were strongly
social, deeply respectful of the individual human life, deeply parental, and
often terribly earnest in their religion.</p>
<p>Not till long after the rest of the planet was once more covered with life,
not till nearly ten million years after the Patagonian disaster, did a group of
these savages, adrift on an iceberg, get blown southward across the sea to the
mainland of Asia. Luckily, for Arctic conditions were increasing, and in time
the islanders were extinguished.</p>
<p>The survivors settled in the new land and spread, century by century, into
the heart of Asia. Their increase was very slow, for they were an infertile and
inflexible race. But conditions were now extremely favourable. The climate was
temperate; for Russia and Europe were now a shallow sea warmed by currents from
the Atlantic. There were no dangerous animals save the small grey bears, an
offshoot from the polar species, and the large wolf-like foxes. Various kinds
of rodents and deer provided meat in plenty. There were birds of all sizes and
habits. Timber, fruit, wild grains and other nourishing plants throve on the
well-watered volcanic soil. The prolonged eruptions, moreover, had once more
enriched the upper layers of the rocky crust with metals.</p>
<p>A few hundred thousand years in this new world sufficed for the human
species to increase from a handful of individuals to a swarm of races. It was
in the conflict and interfusion of these races, and also through the absorption
of certain chemicals from the new volcanic soil, that humanity at last
recovered its vitality.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER VII. THE RISE OF THE SECOND MEN</h3>
<p><b>1. THE APPEARANCE OF A NEW SPECIES</b></p>
<p>It was some ten million years after the Patagonian disaster that the first
elements of a few human species appeared, in an epidemic of biological
variations, many of which were extremely valuable. Upon this raw material the
new and stimulating environment worked for some hundred thousand years until at
last there appeared the Second Men.</p>
<p>Though of greater stature and more roomy cranium, these beings were not
wholly unlike their predecessors in general proportions. Their heads, indeed,
were large even for their bodies, and their necks massive. Their hands were
huge, but finely moulded. Their almost titanic size entailed a seemingly
excessive strength of support; their legs were stouter, even proportionately,
than the legs of the earlier species. Their feet had lost the separate toes,
and, by a strengthening and growing together of the internal bones, had become
more efficient instruments of locomotion. During the Siberian exile the First
Men had acquired a thick hairy covering, and most races of the Second Men
retained something of this blonde hirsute appearance throughout their career.
Their eyes were large, and often jade green, their features firm as carved
granite, yet mobile and lucent. Of the second human species one might say that
Nature had at last repeated and far excelled the noble but unfortunate type
which she had achieved once, long ago, with the first species, in certain
pre-historic cave-dwelling hunters and artists.</p>
<p>Inwardly the Second Men differed from the earlier species in that they had
shed most of those primitive relics which had hampered the First Men more than
was realized. Not only were they free of appendix, tonsils and other useless
excrescences, but also their whole structure was more firmly knit into unity.
Their chemical organization was such that their tissues were kept in better
repair. Their teeth, though proportionately small and few, were almost
completely immune from caries. Such was their glandular equipment that puberty
did not begin till twenty; and not till they were fifty did they reach
maturity. At about one hundred and ninety their powers began to fail, and after
a few years of contemplative retirement they almost invariably died before true
senility could begin. It was as though, when a man's work was finished, and he
had meditated in peace upon his whole career, there were nothing further to
hold his attention and prevent him from falling asleep. Mothers carried the
foetus for three years, suckled the infant for five years, and were sterile
during this period and for another seven years. Their climacteric was reached
at about a hundred and sixty. Architecturally massive like their mates, they
would have seemed to the First Men very formidable titanesses; but even those
early half-human beings would have admired the women of the second species both
for their superb vitality and for their brilliantly human expression.</p>
<p>In temperament the Second Men were curiously different from the earlier
species. The same factors were present, but in different proportions, and in
far greater subordination to the considered will of the individual. Sexual
vigour had returned. But sexual interest was strangely altered. Around the
ancient core of delight in physical and mental contact with the opposite sex
there now appeared a kind of innately sublimated, and no less poignant,
appreciation of the unique physical and mental forms of all kinds of live
things. It is difficult for less ample natures to imagine this expansion of the
innate sexual interest; for to them it is not apparent that the lusty
admiration which at first directs itself solely on the opposite sex is the
appropriate attitude to all the beauties of flesh and spirit in beast and bird
and plant. Parental interest also was strong in the new species, but it too was
universalized. It had become a strong innate interest in, and a devotion to,
all beings that were conceived as in need of help. In the earlier species this
passionate spontaneous altruism occurred only in exceptional persons. In the
new species, however, all normal men and women experienced altruism as a
passion. And yet at the same time primitive parenthood had become tempered to a
less possessive and more objective love, which among the First Men was less
common than they themselves were pleased to believe. Assertiveness had also
greatly changed. Formerly very much of a man's energy had been devoted to the
assertion of himself as a private individual over against other individuals;
and very much of his generosity had been at bottom selfish. But in the Second
Men this competitive self-assertion, this championship of the most intimately
known animal against all others, was greatly tempered. Formerly the major
enterprises of society would never have been carried through had they not been
able to annex to themselves the egoism of their champions. But in the Second
Men the parts were reversed. Few individuals could ever trouble to exert
themselves to the last ounce for merely private ends, save when those ends
borrowed interest or import from some public enterprise. It was only his vision
of a world-wide community of persons, and of his own function therein, that
could rouse the fighting spirit in a man. Thus it was inwardly, rather than in
outward physical characters, that the Second Men differed from the First. And
in nothing did they differ more than in their native aptitude for
cosmopolitanism. They had their tribes and nations. War was not quite unknown
amongst them. But even in primitive times a man's most serious loyalty was
directed toward the race as a whole; and wars were so hampered by impulses of
kindliness toward the enemy that they were apt to degenerate into rather
violent athletic contests, leading to an orgy of fraternization.</p>
<p>It would not be true to say that the strongest interest of these beings was
social. They were never prone to exalt the abstraction called the state, or the
nation, or even the world-commonwealth. For their most characteristic factor
was not mere gregariousness but something novel, namely an innate interest in
personality, both in the actual diversity of persons and in the ideal of
personal development. They had a remarkable power of vividly intuiting their
fellows as unique persons with special needs. Individuals of the earlier
species had suffered from an almost insurmountable spiritual isolation from one
another. Not even lovers, and scarcely even the geniuses with special insight
into personality, ever had anything like accurate vision of one another. But
the Second Men, more intensely and accurately self-conscious, were also more
intensely and accurately conscious of one another. This they achieved by no
unique faculty, but solely by a more ready interest in each other, a finer
insight, and a more active imagination.</p>
<p>They had also a remarkable innate interest in the higher kinds of mental
activity, or rather in the subtle objects of those activities. Even children
were instinctively inclined toward a genuinely aesthetic interest in their
world and their own behaviour, and also toward scientific inquiry and
generalization. Small boys, for instance, would delight in collecting not
merely such things as eggs or crystals, but mathematical formulae expressive of
the different shapes of eggs and crystals, or of the innumerable rhythms of
shells, fronds, leaflets, grass-nodes. And there was a wealth of traditional
fairy-stories whose appeal was grounded in philosophical puzzles. Little
children delighted to hear how the poor things called Illusions were banished
from the Country of the Real, how one-dimensional Mr. Line woke up in a
two-dimensional world, and how a brave young tune slew cacophonous beasts and
won a melodious bride in that strange country where the landscape is all of
sound and all living things are music. The First Men had attained to interest
in science, mathematics, philosophy, only after arduous schooling, but in the
Second Men there was a natural propensity for these activities, no less
vigorous than the primitive instincts. Not, of course, that they were absolved
from learning; but they had the same zest and facility in these matters as
their predecessors had enjoyed only in humbler spheres.</p>
<p>In the earlier species, indeed, the nervous system had maintained only a
very precarious unity, and was all too liable to derangement by the rebellion
of one of its subordinate parts. But in the second species the highest centres
maintained an almost absolute harmony among the lower. Thus the moral conflict
between momentary impulse and considered will, and again between private and
public interest, played a very subordinate part among the Second Men.</p>
<p>In actual cognitive powers, also, this favoured species far outstripped its
predecessor. For instance, vision had greatly developed. The Second Men
distinguished in the spectrum a new primary colour between green and blue; and
beyond blue they saw, not a reddish blue, but again a new primary colour, which
faded with increasing ruddiness far into the old ultraviolet. These two new
primary colours were complementary to one another. At the other end of the
spectrum they saw the infra-red as a peculiar purple. Further, owing to the
very great size of their retina, and the multiplication of rods and cones, they
discriminated much smaller fractions of their field of vision.</p>
<p>Improved discrimination combined with a wonderful fertility of mental
imagery to produce a greatly increased power of insight into the character of
novel situations. Whereas among the First Men, native intelligence had
increased only up to the age of fourteen, among the Second Men it progressed up
to forty. Thus an average adult was capable of immediate insight into problems
which even the most brilliant of the First Men could only solve by prolonged
reasoning. This superb clarity of mind enabled the second species to avoid most
of those age-long confusions and superstitions which had crippled its
predecessor. And along with great intelligence went a remarkable flexibility of
will. In fact the Second Men were far more able than the First to break habits
that were seen to be no longer justified.</p>
<p>To sum the matter, circumstance had thrown up a very noble species.
Essentially it was of the same type as the earlier species, but it had
undergone extensive improvements. Much that the First Men could only achieve by
long schooling and self-discipline the Second Men performed with effortless
fluency and delight. In particular, two capacities which for the First Men had
been unattainable ideals were now realized in every normal individual, namely
the power of wholly dispassionate cognition, and the power of loving one's
neighbour as oneself, without reservation. Indeed, in this respect the Second
Men might be called "Natural Christians," so readily and constantly did they
love one another in the manner of Jesus, and infuse their whole social policy
with loving-kindness. Early in their career they conceived the religion of
love, and they were possessed by it again and again, in diverse forms, until
their end. On the other hand, their gift of dispassionate cognition helped them
to pass speedily to the admiration of fate. And being by nature rigorous
thinkers, they were peculiarly liable to be disturbed by the conflict between
their religion of love and their loyalty to fate.</p>
<p>Well might it seem that the stage was now set for a triumphant and rapid
progress of the human spirit. But though the second human species constituted a
real improvement on the first, it lacked certain faculties without which the
next great mental advance could not be made.</p>
<p>Moreover its very excellence involved one novel defect from which the First
Men were almost wholly free. In the lives of humble individuals there are many
occasions when nothing but an heroic effort can wrest their private fortunes
from stagnation or decline, and set them pioneering in new spheres. Among the
First Men this effort was often called forth by passionate regard for self. And
it was upon the tidal wave of innumerable egoisms, blindly surging in one
direction, that the first species was carried forward. But, to repeat, in the
Second Men self-regard was never an over-mastering motive. Only at the call of
social loyalty or personal love would a man spur himself to desperate efforts.
Whenever the stake appeared to be mere private advancement, he was apt to
prefer peace to enterprise, the delights of sport, companionship, art or
intellect, to the slavery of self-regard. And so in the long run, though the
Second Men were fortunate in their almost complete immunity from the lust of
power and personal ostentation (which cursed the earlier species with
industrialism and militarism), and though they enjoyed long ages of idyllic
peace, often upon a high cultural plane, their progress toward full
self-conscious mastery of the planet was curiously slow.</p>
<p><b>2. THE INTERCOURSE OF THREE SPECIES</b></p>
<p>In a few thousand years the new species filled the region from Afghanistan
to the China Sea, overran India, and penetrated far into the new Australasian
continent. Its advance was less military than cultural. The remaining tribes of
the First Men, with whom the new species could not normally interbreed, were
unable to live up to the higher culture that flooded round them and over them.
They faded out.</p>
<p>For some further thousands of years the Second Men remained as noble
savages, then passed rapidly through the pastoral into the agricultural stage.
In this era they sent an expedition across the new and gigantic Hindu Kush to
explore Africa. Here it was that they came upon the subhuman descendants of the
ship's crew that had sailed from Siberia millions of years earlier. These
animals had spread south through America and across the new Atlantic Isthmus
into Africa.</p>
<p>Dwarfed almost to the knees of the superior species, bent so that as often
as not they used their arms as aids to locomotion, flat-headed and curiously
long-snouted, these creatures were by now more baboon-like than human. Yet in
the wild state they maintained a very complicated organization into castes,
based on the sense of smell. Their powers of scent, indeed, had developed at
the expense of their intelligence. Certain odours, which had become sacred
through their very repulsiveness, were given off only by individuals having
certain diseases. Such individuals were treated with respect by their fellows;
and though, in fact, they were debilitated by their disease, they were so
feared that no healthy individual dared resist them. The characteristic odours
were themselves graded in nobility, so that those individuals who bore only the
less repulsive perfume, owed respect to those in whom a widespread rotting of
the body occasioned the most nauseating stench. These plagues had the special
effect of stimulating reproductive activity; and this fact was one cause both
of the respect felt for them, and of the immense fertility of the species, such
a fertility that, in spite of plagues and obtuseness, it had flooded two
continents. For though the plagues were fatal, they were slow to develop.
Further, though individuals far advanced in disease were often incapable of
feeding themselves, they profited by the devotion of the healthy, who were
well-pleased if they also became infected.</p>
<p>But the most startling fact about these creatures was that many of them had
become enslaved to another species. When the Second Men had penetrated further
into Africa they came to a forest region where companies of diminutive monkeys
resisted their intrusion. It was soon evident that any interference with the
imbecile and passive sub-humans in this district was resented by the monkeys.
And as the latter made use of a primitive kind of bow and poisoned arrows,
their opposition was seriously inconvenient to the invaders. The use of weapons
and other tools, and a remarkable co-ordination in warfare, made it clear that
in intelligence this simian species had far outstripped all creatures save man.
Indeed, the Second Men were now face to face with the only terrestrial species
which ever evolved so far as to compete with man in versatility and practical
shrewdness.</p>
<p>As the invaders advanced, the monkeys were seen to round up whole flocks of
the sub-men and drive them out of reach. It was noticed also that these
domesticated sub-men were wholly free from the diseases that infected their
wild kinsfolk, who on this account greatly despised the healthy drudges. Later
it transpired that the sub-men were trained as beasts of burden by the monkeys
and that their flesh was a much relished article of diet. An arboreal city of
woven branches was discovered, and was apparently in course of construction,
for the sub-men were dragging timber and hauling it aloft, goaded by the
bone-headed spears of the monkeys. It was evident also that the authority of
the monkeys was maintained less by force than by intimidation. They anointed
themselves with the juice of a rare aromatic plant, which struck terror into
their poor cattle, and reduced them to abject docility.</p>
<p>Now the invaders were only a handful of pioneers. They had come over the
mountains in search of metals, which had been brought to the earth's surface
during the volcanic era. An amiable race, they felt no hostility toward the
monkeys, but rather amusement at their habits and ingenuity. But the monkeys
resented the mere presence of these mightier beings; and, presently collecting
in the tree-tops in thousands, they annihilated the party with their poisoned
arrows. One man alone escaped into Asia. In a couple of years he returned, with
a host. Yet this was no punitive expedition, for the bland Second Men were
strangely lacking in resentment. Establishing themselves on the outskirts of
the forest region, they contrived to communicate and barter with the little
people of the trees, so that after a while they were allowed to enter the
territory unmolested, and begin their great metallurgical survey.</p>
<p>A close study of the relations of these very different intelligences would
be enlightening, but we have no time for it. Within their own sphere the
monkeys showed perhaps a quicker wit than the men; but only within very narrow
limits did their intelligence work at all. They were deft at finding new means
for the better satisfaction of their appetites. But they wholly lacked
self-criticism. Upon a normal outfit of instinctive needs they had developed
many acquired, traditional cravings, most of which were fantastic and harmful.
The Second Men, on the other hand, though often momentarily outwitted by the
monkeys, were in the long run incomparably more able and more sane.</p>
<p>The difference between the two species is seen clearly in their reaction to
metals. The Second Men sought metal solely for the carrying on of an already
well-advanced civilization. But the monkeys, when for the first time they saw
the bright ingots, were fascinated. They had already begun to hate the invaders
for their native superiority and their material wealth; and now this jealousy
combined with primitive acquisitiveness to make the slabs of copper and tin
become in their eyes symbols of power. In order to remain unmolested in their
work, the invaders had paid a toll of the wares of their own country, of
baskets, pottery and various specially designed miniature tools. But at the
sight of the crude metal, the monkeys demanded a share of this noblest product
of their own land. This was readily granted, since it did away with the need of
bringing goods from Asia. But the monkeys had no real use for metal. They
merely hoarded it, and became increasingly avaricious. No one had respect among
them who did not laboriously carry a great ingot about with him wherever he
went. And after a while it came to be considered actually indecent to be seen
without a slab of metal. In conversation between the sexes this symbol of
refinement was always held so as to conceal the genitals.</p>
<p>The more metal the monkeys acquired the more they craved. Blood was often
shed in disputes over the possession of hoards. But this internecine strife
gave place at length to a concerted movement to prevent the whole export of
metal from their land. Some even suggested that the ingots in their possession
should be used for making more effective weapons, with which to expel the
invaders. This policy was rejected, not merely because there were none who
could work up the crude metal, but because it was generally agreed that to put
such a sacred material to any kind of service would be base.</p>
<p>The will to be rid of the invader was augmented by a dispute about the
sub-men. These abject beings were treated very harshly by their masters. Not
only were they overworked, but also they were tortured in cold blood, not
precisely through lust in cruelty, but through a queer sense of humour, or
delight in the incongruous. For instance, it afforded the monkeys a strangely
innocent and extravagant pleasure to compel these cattle to carry on their work
in an erect posture, which was by now quite unnatural to them, or to eat their
own excrement or even their own young. If ever these tortures roused some
exceptional sub-man to rebel, the monkeys flared into contemptuous rage at such
a lack of humour, so incapable were they of realizing the subjective processes
of others. To one another they could, indeed, be kindly and generous; but even
among themselves the imp of humour would sometimes run riot. In any matter in
which an individual was misunderstood by his fellows, he was sure to be
gleefully baited, and often harried to death. But in the main it was only the
slave-species that suffered.</p>
<p>The invaders were outraged by this cruel imbecility, and ventured to
protest. To the monkeys the protest was unintelligible. What were cattle for,
but to be used in the service of superior beings? Evidently, the monkeys
thought, the invaders were after all lacking in the finer capacities of mind,
since they failed to appreciate the beauty of the fantastic.</p>
<p>This and other causes of friction finally led the monkeys to conceive a
means of freeing themselves for ever. The Second Men had proved to be terribly
liable to the diseases of their wretched sub-human kinsfolk. Only by very
rigorous quarantine had they stamped out the epidemic that had revealed this
fact. Now partly for revenge, but partly also through malicious delight in the
topsy-turvy, the monkeys determined to make use of this human weakness. There
was a certain nut, very palatable to both taco and monkeys, which grew in a
remote part of the country. The monkeys had already begun to barter this nut
for extra metal; and the pioneering Second Men were arranging to send caravans
laden with nuts into their own country. In this situation the monkeys found
their opportunity. They carefully infected large quantities of nuts with the
plagues rampant among those herds of sub-men which had not been domesticated.
Very soon caravans of infected nuts were scattered over Asia. The effect upon a
race wholly fresh to these microbes was disastrous. Not only were the
pioneering settlements wiped out, but the bulk of the species also. The sub-men
themselves had become adjusted to the microbes, and even reproduced more
rapidly because of them. Not so the more delicately organized species. They
died off like autumn leaves. Civilization fell to pieces. In a few generations
Asia was peopled only by a handful of scattered savages, all diseased and
mostly crippled.</p>
<p>But in spite of this disaster the species remained potentially the same.
Within a few centuries it had thrown off the infection and had begun once more
the ascent toward civilization. After another thousand years, pioneers again
crossed the mountains and entered Africa. They met with no opposition. The
precarious flicker of simian intelligence had long ago ceased. The monkeys had
so burdened their bodies with metal and their minds with the obsession of
metal, that at length the herds of sub-human cattle were able to rebel and
devour their masters.</p>
<p><b>3. THE ZENITH OF THE SECOND MEN</b></p>
<p>For nearly a quarter of a million years the Second Men passed through
successive phases of prosperity and decline. Their advance to developed culture
was not nearly so steady and triumphal as might have been expected from a race
of such brilliance. As with individuals, so with species, accidents are all too
likely to defeat even the most cautious expectations. For instance, the Second
Men were for a long time seriously hampered by a "glacial epoch" which at its
height imposed Arctic conditions even as far south as India. Little by little
the encroaching ice crowded their tribes into the extremity of that peninsula,
and reduced their culture to the level of the Esquimaux. In time, of course,
they recovered, but only to suffer other scourges, of which the most
devastating were epidemics of bacteria. The more recently developed and highly
organized tissues of this species were peculiarly susceptible to disease, and
not once but many times a promising barbarian culture or "mediaeval"
civilization was wiped out by plagues.</p>
<p>But of all the natural disasters which befell the Second Men, the worst was
due to a spontaneous change in their own physical constitution. Just as the
fangs of the ancient sabre-toothed tiger had finally grown so large that the
beast could not eat, so the brain of the second human species threatened to
outgrow the rest of its body. In a cranium that was originally roomy enough,
this rare product of nature was now increasingly cramped; while a circulatory
system, that was formerly quite adequate, was becoming more and more liable to
fail in pumping blood through so cramped a structure. These two causes at last
began to take serious effect. Congenital imbecility became increasingly common,
along with all manner of acquired mental diseases. For some thousands of years
the race remained in a most precarious condition, now almost dying out, now
rapidly attaining an extravagant kind of culture in some region where physical
nature happened to be peculiarly favourable. One of these precarious flashes of
spirit occurred in the Yang-tze valley as a sudden and brief effulgence of city
states peopled by neurotics, geniuses and imbeciles. The lasting upshot of this
civilization was a brilliant literature of despair, dominated by a sense of the
difference between the actual and the potential in man and the universe. Later,
when the race had attained its noontide glory, it was wont to brood upon this
tragic voice from the past in order to remind itself of the underlying horror
of existence.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, brains became more and more overgrown, and the race more and more
disorganized. There is no doubt that it would have gone the way of the
sabre-toothed tiger, simply through the fatal direction of its own
physiological evolution, had not a more stable variety of this second human
species at last appeared. It was in North America, into which, by way of
Africa, the Second Men had long ago spread, that the roomier-skulled and
stronger-hearted type first occurred. By great good fortune this new variety
proved to be a dominant Mendelian character. And as it interbred freely with
the older variety, a superbly healthy race soon peopled America. The species
was saved.</p>
<p>But another hundred thousand years were to pass before the Second Men could
reach their zenith. I must not dwell on this movement of the human symphony,
though it is one of great richness. Inevitably many themes are now repeated
from the career of the earlier species, but with special features, and
transposed, so to speak, from the minor to the major key. Once more primitive
cultures succeed one another, or pass into civilization, barbarian or
"mediaeval"; and in turn these fall or are transformed. Twice, indeed, the
planet became the home of a single world-wide community which endured for many
thousands of years, until misfortune wrecked it. The collapse is not altogether
surprising, for unlike the earlier species, the Second Men had no coal and oil.
In both these early world societies of the Second Men there was a complete lack
of mechanical power. Consequently, though world-wide and intricate, they were
in a manner "mediaeval." In every continent intensive and highly skilled
agriculture crept from the valleys up the mountain sides and over the irrigated
deserts. In the rambling garden-cities each citizen took his share of drudgery,
practised also some fine handicraft, and yet had leisure for gaiety and
contemplation. Intercourse within and between the five great continental
communities had to be maintained by coaches, caravans and sailing ships. Sail,
indeed, now came back into its own, and far surpassed its previous
achievements. On every sea, fleets of great populous red-sailed clippers,
wooden, with carved poops and prows, but with the sleek flanks of the dolphin
carried the produce of every land, and the many travellers who delighted to
spend a sabbatical year among foreigners.</p>
<p>So much, in the fullness of time, could be achieved, even without mechanical
power, by a species gifted with high intelligence and immune from anti-social
self-regard. But inevitably there came an end. A virus, whose subtle
derangement of the glandular system was never suspected by a race still
innocent of physiology, propagated throughout the world a mysterious fatigue.
Century by century, agriculture withdrew from the hills and deserts,
craftsmanship deteriorated, thought became stereotyped. And the vast lethargy
produced a vast despond. At length the nations lost touch with one another,
forgot one another, forgot their culture, crumbled into savage tribes. Once
more Earth slept.</p>
<p>Many thousand years later, long after the disease was spent, several great
peoples developed in isolation. When at last they made contact, they were so
alien that in each there had to occur a difficult cultural revolution, not
unaccompanied by bloodshed, before the world could once more feel as one. But
this second world order endured only a few centuries, for profound subconscious
differences now made it impossible for the races to keep whole-heartedly loyal
to each other. Religion finally severed the unity which all willed but none
could trust. An heroic nation of monotheists sought to impose its faith on a
vaguely pantheist world. For the first and last time the Second Men stumbled
into a world-wide civil war; and just because the war was religious it
developed a brutality hitherto unknown. With crude artillery, but with
fanaticism, the two groups of citizen armies harried one another. The fields
were laid waste, the cities burned, the rivers, and finally the winds were
poisoned. Long after that pitch of horror had been passed, at which an inferior
species would have lost heart, these heroic madmen continued to organize
destruction. And when at last the inevitable breakdown came, it was the more
complete. In a sensitive species the devastating enlightenment which at last
began to invade every mind, the overwhelming sense of treason against the human
spirit, the tragic comicality of the whole struggle, sapped all energy. Not for
thousands of years did the Second Men achieve once more a world-community. But
they had learnt their lesson.</p>
<p>The third and most enduring civilization of the Second Men repeated the
glorified mediaevalism of the first, and passed beyond it into a phase of
brilliant natural science. Chemical fertilizers increased the crops, and
therefore the world population. Wind and water-power was converted into
electricity to supplement human and animal labour. At length, after many
failures, it became possible to use volcanic and subterranean energy to drive
dynamos. In a few years the whole physical character of civilization was
transformed. Yet in this headlong passage into industrialism the Second Men
escaped the errors of ancient Europe, America and Patagonia. This was due
partly to their greater gift of sympathy, which, save during the one great
aberration of the religious war, made them all in a very vivid manner members
one of another. But partly also it was due to their combination of a practical
common sense that was more than British, with a more than Russian immunity from
the glamour of wealth, and a passion for the life of the mind that even Greece
had never known. Mining and manufacture, even with plentiful electric power,
were occupations scarcely less arduous than of old; but since each individual
was implicated by vivid sympathy in the lives of all persons within his ken,
there was little or no obsession with private economic power. The will to avoid
industrial evils was effective, because sincere.</p>
<p>At its height, the culture of the Second Men was dominated by respect for
the individual human personality. Yet contemporary individuals were regarded
both as end and as means, as a stage toward far ampler individuals in the
remote future. For, although they themselves were more long-lived than their
predecessors, the Second Men were oppressed by the brevity of human life, and
the pettiness of the individual's achievement in comparison with the infinity
round about him which awaited apprehension and admiration. Therefore they were
determined to produce a race endowed with much greater natural longevity.
Again, though they participated in one another far more than their
predecessors, they themselves were dogged by despair at the distortion and
error which spoiled every mind's apprehension of others. Like their
predecessors, they had passed through all the more na&iuml;ve phases of
self-consciousness and other-consciousness, and through idealizations of
various modes of personality. They had admired the barbarian hero, the
romantical, the sensitive-subtle, the bluff and hearty, the decadent, the
bland, the severe. And they had concluded that each person, while being himself
an expression of some one mode of personality, should seek to be also sensitive
to every other mode. They even conceived that the ideal community should be
knit into one mind by each unique individual's direct telepathic apprehension
of the experience of all his fellows. And the fact that this ideal seemed
utterly unattainable wove through their whole culture a thread of darkness, a
yearning for spiritual union, a horror of loneliness, which never seriously
troubled their far more insulated predecessors.</p>
<p>This craving for union influenced the sexual life of the species. In the
first place, so closely was the mental related to the physiological in their
composition, that when there was no true union of minds, the sexual act failed
to give conception. Casual sexual relations thus came to be regarded very
differently from those which expressed a deeper intimacy. They were treated as
a delightful embroidery on life, affording opportunity of much elegance,
light-hearted tenderness, banter, and of course physical inebriation; but they
were deemed to signify nothing more than the delight of friend in friend. Where
there was a marriage of minds, but then only during the actual passion of
communion, sexual intercourse almost always resulted in conception. Under these
circumstances, intimate persons had often to practise contraception, but
acquaintances never. And one of the most beneficial inventions of the
psychologists was a technique of autosuggestion, which, at will, either
facilitated conception, or prevented it, surely, harmlessly, and without
inaesthetic accompaniments.</p>
<p>The sexual morality of the Second Men passed through all the phases known to
the First Men; but by the time that they had established a single world-culture
it had a form not known before. Not only were both men and women encouraged to
have as much casual sexual intercourse as they needed for their enrichment, but
also, on the higher plane of spiritual union, strict monogamy was deprecated.
For in sexual union of this higher kind they saw a symbol of that communion of
minds which they longed to make universal. Thus the most precious gift that a
lover could bring to the beloved was not virginity but sexual experience. The
union, it was felt, was the more pregnant the more each party could contribute
from previous sexual and spiritual intimacy with others. Yet though as a
principle monogamy was not applauded, the higher kind of union would in
practice sometimes result in a life-long partnership. But since the average
life was so much longer than among the First Men, such fortuitously perennial
unions were often deliberately interrupted for a while, by a change of
partners, and then restored with their vitality renewed. Sometimes, on the
other hand, a group of persons of both sexes would maintain a composite and
permanent marriage together. Sometimes such a group would exchange a member, or
members, with another group, or disperse itself completely among other groups,
to come together again years afterwards with enriched experience. In one form
or another, this "marriage of groups" was much prized, as an extension of the
vivid sexual participation into an ampler sphere. Among the First Men the
brevity of life made these novel forms of union impossible; for obviously no
sexual, and no spiritual, relation can be developed with any richness in less
than thirty years of close intimacy. It would be interesting to examine the
social institutions of the Second Men at their zenith; but we have not time to
spare for this subject, nor even for the brilliant intellectual achievements in
which the species so far outstripped its predecessor. Obviously any account of
the natural science and the philosophy of the Second Men would be
unintelligible to readers of this book. Suffice it that they avoided the errors
which had led the First Men into false abstraction, and into metaphysical
theories which were at once sophisticated and na&iuml;ve.</p>
<p>Not until after they had passed beyond the best work of the First Men in
science and philosophy did the Second Men discover the remains of the great
stone library in Siberia. A party of engineers happened upon it while they were
preparing to sink a shaft for subterranean energy. The tablets were broken,
disordered, weathered. Little by little, however, they were reconstructed and
interpreted, with the aid of the pictorial dictionary. The finds were of
extreme interest to the Second Men, but not in the manner which the Siberian
party had intended, not as a store of scientific and philosophic truth, but as
a vivid historical document. The view of the universe which the tablets
recorded was both too na&iuml;ve and too artificial; but the insight which they
afforded into the mind of the earlier species was invaluable. So little of the
old world had survived the volcanic epoch that the Second Men had failed
hitherto to get a clear picture of their predecessors.</p>
<p>One item alone in this archaeological treasure had more than historical
interest. The biologist leader of the little party in Siberia had recorded much
of the sacred text of the Life of the Divine Boy. At the end of the record came
the prophet's last words, which had so baffled Patagonia. This theme was full
of meaning for the Second Men, as indeed it would have been even for the First
Men in their prime. But whereas for the First Men the dispassionate ecstasy
which the Boy had preached was rather an ideal than a fact of experience, the
Second Men recognized in the prophet's words an intuition familiar to
themselves. Long ago the tortured geniuses of the Yang-tze cities had expressed
this same intuition. Subsequently also it had often been experienced by the
more healthy generations, but always with a certain shame. For it had become
associated with morbid mentality. But now with growing conviction that it was
wholesome, the Second Men had begun to grope for a wholesome expression of it.
In the life and the last words of the remote apostle of youth they found an
expression which was not wholly inadequate. The species was presently to be in
sore need of this gospel.</p>
<p>The world-community reached at length a certain relative perfection and
equilibrium. There was a long summer of social harmony, prosperity, and
cultural embellishment. Almost all that could be done by mind in the stage to
which it had then reached seemed to have been done. Generations of long-lived,
eager, and mutually delightful beings succeeded one another. There was a
widespread feeling that the time had come for man to gather all his strength
for a flight into some new sphere of mentality. The present type of human
being, it was recognized, was but a rough and incoherent natural product. It
was time for man to take control of himself and remake himself upon a nobler
pattern. With this end in view, two great works were set afoot, research into
the ideal of human nature, and research into practical means of remaking human
nature. Individuals in all lands, living their private lives, delighting in
each other, keeping the tissue of society alive and vigorous, were deeply moved
by the thought that their world community was at last engaged upon this heroic
task.</p>
<p>But elsewhere in the solar system life of a very different kind was seeking,
in its own strange manner, ends incomprehensible to man, yet at bottom
identical with his own ends. And presently the two were to come together, not
in co-operation.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER VIII. THE MARTIANS</h3>
<p><b>1. THE FIRST MARTIAN INVASION</b></p>
<p>Upon the foot-hills of the new and titanic mountains that were once the
Hindu Kush, were many holiday centres, whence the young men and women of Asia
were wont to seek Alpine dangers and hardships for their souls' refreshment. It
was in this district, and shortly after a summer dawn, that the Martians were
first seen by men. Early walkers noticed that the sky had an unaccountably
greenish tinge, and that the climbing sun, though free from cloud, was wan.
Observers were presently surprised to see the green concentrate itself into a
thousand tiny cloudlets, with clear blue between. Field-glasses revealed within
each fleck of green some faint hint of a ruddy nucleus, and shifting strands of
an infra-red colour, which would have been invisible to the earlier human race.
These extraordinary specks of cloud were all of about the same size, the
largest of them appearing smaller than the moon's disk; but in form they varied
greatly, and were seen to be changing their shapes more rapidly than the
natural cirrus which they slightly resembled. In fact, though there was much
that was cloud-like in their form and motion, there was also something definite
about them, both in their features and behaviour, which suggested life. Indeed
they were strongly reminiscent of primitive amoeboid organisms seen through a
microscope.</p>
<p>The whole sky was strewn with them, here and there in concentrations of
unbroken green, elsewhere more sparsely. And they were observed to be moving. A
general drift of the whole celestial population was setting toward one of the
snowy peaks that dominated the landscape. Presently the foremost individuals
reached the mountain's crest, and were seen to be creeping down the rock-face
with a very slow amoeboid action.</p>
<p>Meanwhile a couple of aeroplanes, electrically driven, had climbed the sky
to investigate the strange phenomenon at close quarters. They passed among the
drifting cloudlets, and actually through many of them, without hindrance, and
almost without being obscured from view.</p>
<p>On the mountain a vast swarm of the cloudlets was collecting, and creeping
down the precipices and snow-fields into a high glacier valley. At a certain
point, where the glacier dropped steeply to a lower level, the advance guard
slowed down and stopped, while hosts of their fellows continued to pack in on
them from behind. In half an hour the whole sky was once more clear, save for
normal clouds; but upon the glacier lay what might almost have been an
exceptionally dark solid-looking thunder-cloud, save for its green tinge and
seething motion. For some minutes this strange object was seen to concentrate
itself into a somewhat smaller bulk and become darker. Then it moved forward
again, and passed over the cliffy end of the glacier into the pine-clad valley.
An intervening ridge now hid it from its first observers.</p>
<p>Lower down the valley there was a village. Many of the inhabitants, when
they saw the mysterious dense fume advancing upon them, took to their
mechanical vehicles and fled; but some waited out of curiosity. They were
swallowed up in a murky olive-brown fog, shot here and there with queer
shimmering streaks of a ruddier tint. Presently there was complete darkness.
Artificial lights were blotted out almost at arm's length. Breathing became
difficult. Throats and lungs were irritated. Every one was seized with a
violent attack of sneezing and coughing. The cloud streamed through the
village, and seemed to exercise irregular pressures upon objects, not always in
the general direction of movement but sometimes in the opposite direction, as
though it were getting a purchase upon human bodies and walls, and actually
elbowing its way along. Within a few minutes the fog lightened; and presently
it left the village behind it, save for a few strands and whiffs of its
smoke-like substance, which had become entangled in side-streets and isolated.
Very soon, however, these seemed to get themselves clear and hurry to overtake
the main body.</p>
<p>When the gasping villagers had somewhat recovered, they sent a radio message
to the little town lower down the valley, urging temporary evacuation. The
message was not broadcast, but transmitted on a slender beam of rays. It so
happened that the beam had to be directed through the noxious matter itself.
While the message was being given, the cloud's progress ceased, and its
outlines became vague and ragged. Fragments of it actually drifted away on the
winds and dissipated themselves. Almost as soon as the message was completed,
the cloud began to define itself again, and lay for a quarter of an hour at
rest. A dozen bold young men from the town now approached the dark mass out of
curiosity. No sooner did they come face to face with it, round a bend in the
valley, than the cloud rapidly contracted, till it was no bigger than a house.
Looking now something between a dense, opaque fume and an actual jelly, it lay
still until the party had ventured within a few yards. Evidently their courage
failed, for they were seen to turn. But before they had retreated three paces,
a long proboscis shot out of the main mass with the speed of a chameleon's
tongue, and enveloped them. Slowly it withdrew; but the young men had been
gathered in with it. The cloud, or jelly, churned itself violently for some
seconds, then ejected the bodies in a single chewed lump.</p>
<p>The murderous thing now elbowed itself along the road toward the town,
leaned against the first house, crushed it, and proceeded to wander hither and
thither, pushing everything down before it, as though it were a lava-stream.
The inhabitants took to their heels, but several were licked up and
slaughtered.</p>
<p>Powerful beam radiation was now poured into the cloud from all the
neighbouring installations. Its destructive activity slackened, and once more
it began to disintegrate and expand. Presently it streamed upwards as a huge
column of smoke; and, at a great altitude, it dissipated itself again into a
swarm of the original green cloudlets, noticeably reduced in numbers. These
again faded into a uniform greenish tinge, which gradually vanished.</p>
<p>Thus ended the first invasion of the Earth from Mars.</p>
<p><b>2. LIFE ON MARS</b></p>
<p>Our concern is with humanity, and with the Martians only in relation to men.
But in order to understand the tragic intercourse of the two planets, it is
necessary to glance at conditions on Mars, and conceive something of those
fantastically different yet fundamentally similar beings, who were now seeking
to possess man's home.</p>
<p>To describe the biology, psychology and history of a whole world in a few
pages is as difficult as it would be to give the Martians themselves in the
same compass a true idea of man. Encyclopaedias, libraries, would be needed in
either case. Yet, somehow, I must contrive to suggest the alien sufferings and
delights, and the many aeons of struggle, which went to the making of these
strange nonhuman intelligences, in some ways so inferior yet in others
definitely superior to the human species which they encountered.</p>
<p>Mars was a world whose mass was about one-tenth that of the earth. Gravity
therefore had played a less tyrannical part in Martian than in terrestrial
history. The weakness of Martian gravity combined with the paucity of the
planet's air envelope to make the general atmospheric pressure far lighter than
on earth. Oxygen was far less plentiful. Water also was comparatively rare.
There were no oceans or seas, but only shallow lakes and marshes, many of which
dried up in summer. The climate of the planet was in general very dry, and yet
very cold. Being without cloud, it was perennially bright with the feeble rays
of a distant sun.</p>
<p>Earlier in the history of Mars, when there were more air, more water, and a
higher temperature from internal heat, life had appeared in the coastal waters
of the seas, and evolution had proceeded in much the same manner as on earth.
Primitive life was differentiated into the fundamental animal and vegetable
types. Multicellular structures appeared, and specialized themselves in diverse
manners to suit diverse environments. A great variety of plant forms clothed
the lands, often with forests of gigantic and slender-stemmed plumes.
Mollusc-like and insect-like animals crept or swam, or shot themselves hither
and thither in fantastic jumps. Huge spidery creatures of a type not wholly
unlike crustaceans, or gigantic grasshoppers, bounded after their prey, and
developed a versatility and cunning which enabled them to dominate the planet
almost as, at a much later date, early man was to dominate the terrestrial
wild.</p>
<p>But meanwhile a rapid loss of atmosphere, and especially of water vapor, was
changing Martian conditions beyond the limits of adaptability of this early
fauna and flora. At the same time a very different kind of vital organization
was beginning to profit by the change. On Mars, as on the Earth, life had
arisen from one of many "subvital" forms. The new type of life on Mars evolved
from another of these subvital kinds of molecular organization, one which had
hitherto failed to evolve at all, and had played an insignificant part, save
occasionally as a rare virus in the respiratory organs of animals. These
fundamental subvital units of organization were ultra-microscopic, and indeed
far smaller than the terrestrial bacteria, or even the terrestrial viruses.
They originally occurred in the marshy ponds, which dried up every spring, and
became depressions of baked mud and dust. Certain of their species, borne into
the air upon dust particles, developed an extremely dry habit of life. They
maintained themselves by absorbing chemicals from the wind borne dust, and a
very slight amount of moisture from the air. Also they absorbed sunlight by a
photo-synthesis almost identical with that of the Plants.</p>
<p>To this extent they were similar to the other living things, but they had
also certain capacities which the other stock had lost at the very outset of
its evolutionary career. Terrestrial organisms, and Martian organisms of the
terrestrial type, maintained themselves as vital unities by means of nervous
systems, or other forms of material contact between parts. In the most
developed forms, an immensely complicated neural "telephone" system connected
every part of the body with a vast central exchange, the brain. Thus on the
earth a single organism was without exception a continuous system of matter,
which maintained a certain constancy of form. But from the distinctively
Martian subvital unit there evolved at length a very different kind of complex
organism, in which material contact of parts was not necessary either to
coordination of behaviour or unity of consciousness. These ends were achieved
upon a very different physical basis. The ultra-microscopic subvital members
were sensitive to all kinds of etherial vibrations, directly sensitive, in a
manner impossible to terrestrial life; and they could also initiate vibrations.
Upon this basis Martian life developed at length the capacity of maintaining
vital organization as a single conscious individual without continuity of
living matter. Thus the typical Martian organism was a cloudlet, a group of
free-moving members dominated by a "group-mind." But in one species
individuality came to inhere, for certain purposes, not in distinct cloudlets
only, but in a great fluid system of cloudlets. Such was the single-minded
Martian host which invaded the Earth.</p>
<p>The Martian organism depended, so to speak, not on "telephone" wires, but on
an immense crowd of mobile "wireless stations," transmitting and receiving
different wave-lengths according to their function. The radiation of a single
unit was of course very feeble; but a great system of units could maintain
contact with its wandering parts over a considerable distance.</p>
<p>One other important characteristic distinguished the dominant form of life
on Mars. Just as a cell, in the terrestrial form of life, has often the power
of altering its shape (whence the whole mechanism of muscular activity), so in
the Martian form the free-floating ultra-microscopic unit might be specialized
for generating around itself a magnetic field, and so either repelling or
attracting its neighbours. Thus a system of materially disconnected units had a
certain cohesion. Its consistency was something between a smoke-cloud and a
very tenuous jelly. It had a definite, though ever-changing contour and
resistant surface. By massed mutual repulsions of its constituent units it
could exercise pressure on surrounding objects; and in its most concentrated
form the Martian cloud-jelly could bring to bear immense forces which could
also be controlled for very delicate manipulation. Magnetic forces were also
responsible for the mollusc-like motion of the cloud as a whole over the
ground, and again for the transport of lifeless material and living units from
region to region within the cloud.</p>
<p>The magnetic field of repulsion and attraction generated by a subvital unit
was much more restricted than its field of "wireless" communication. Similarly
with organized systems of units. Thus each of the cloudlets which the Second
Men saw in their sky was an independent motor unit; but also it was in a kind
of "telepathic" communication with all its fellows. Indeed in every public
enterprise, such as the terrestrial campaigns, almost perfect unity of
consciousness was maintained within the limits of a huge field of radiation.
Yet only when the whole population concentrated itself into a small and
relatively dense cloud-jelly, did it become a single magnetic motor unit. The
Martians, it should be noted, had three possible forms, or formations, namely:
first, an "open order" of independent and very tenuous cloudlets in
"telepathic" communication, and often in strict unity as a group mind; second,
a more concentrated and less vulnerable corporate cloud; and third, an
extremely concentrated and formidable cloud-jelly.</p>
<p>Save for these very remarkable characteristics, there was no really
fundamental difference between the distinctively Martian and the distinctively
terrestrial forms of life. The chemical basis of the former was somewhat more
complicated than that of the latter; and selenium played a part in it, to which
nothing corresponded in terrestrial life. The Martian organism, moreover, was
unique in that it fulfilled within itself the functions of both animal and
vegetable. But, save for these peculiarities, the two types of life were
biochemically much the same. Both needed material from the ground, both needed
sunlight. Each lived in the chemical changes occurring in its own "flesh."
Each, of course, tended to maintain itself as an organic unity. There was a
certain difference, indeed, in respect of reproduction; for the Martian
subvital units retained the power of growth and sub-division. Thus the birth of
a Martian cloud arose from the sub-division of myriads of units within the
parent cloud, followed by their ejection as a new individual. And, as the units
were highly specialized for different functions, representatives of many types
had to pass into the new cloud.</p>
<p>In the earliest stages of evolution on Mars the units had become independent
of each other as soon as they parted in reproduction. But later the hitherto
useless and rudimentary power of emitting radiation was specialized, so that,
after reproduction, free individuals came to maintain radiant contact with one
another, and to behave with ever-increasing coordination. Still later, these
organized groups themselves maintained radiant contact with groups of their
offspring, thus constituting larger individuals with specialized members. With
each advance in complexity the sphere of radiant influence increased; until, at
the zenith of Martian evolution, the whole planet (save for the remaining
animal and vegetable representatives of the other and unsuccessful kind of
life) constituted sometimes a single biological and psychological individual.
But this occurred as a rule only in respect of matters which concerned the
species as a whole. At most times the Martian individual was a cloudlet, such
as those which first astonished the Second Men. But in great public crises each
cloudlet would suddenly wake up to find himself the mind of the whole race,
sensing through many individuals, and interpreting his sensations in the light
of the experience of the whole race.</p>
<p>The life which dominated Mars was thus something between an extremely
well-disciplined army of specialized units, and a body possessed by one mind.
Like an army, it could take any form without destroying its organic unity. Like
an army it was sometimes a crowd of free-wandering units, yet at other times
also it disposed itself in very special orders to fulfil special functions.
Like an army it was composed of free, experiencing individuals who voluntarily
submitted themselves to discipline. On the other hand, unlike an army, it woke
occasionally into unified consciousness.</p>
<p>The same fluctuation between individuality and multiplicity which
characterized the race as a whole, characterized also each of the cloudlets
themselves. Each was sometimes an individual, sometimes a swarm of more
primitive individuals. But while the race rather seldom rose to full
individuality, the cloudlets declined from it only in very special
circumstances. Each cloudlet was an organization of specialized groups formed
of minor specialized groups, which in turn were composed of the fundamental
specialized varieties of subvital units. Each free-roving group of free-roving
units constituted a special organ, fulfilling some particular function in the
whole. Thus some were specialized for attraction and repulsion, some for
chemical operations, some for storing the sun's energy, some for emitting
radiation, some for absorbing and storing water, some for special
sensitivities, such as awareness of mechanical pressure and vibration, or
temperature changes, or light rays. Others again were specialized to fulfil the
function of the brain of man; but in a peculiar manner. The whole volume of the
cloudlet vibrated with innumerable "wireless" messages in very many
wave-lengths from the different "organs." It was the function of the "brain"
units to receive, and correlate, and interpret these messages in the light of
past experience, and to initiate responses in the wave-lengths appropriate to
the organs concerned.</p>
<p>All these subvital units, save a few types that were too highly specialized,
were capable of independent life as air-borne bacteria or viruses. And whenever
they lost touch with the radiation of the whole system, they continued to live
their own simple lives until they were once more controlled. All were
free-floating units, but normally they were under the influence of the
cloudlet's system of electro-magnetic fields, and were directed hither and
thither for their special functions. And under this influence some of them
might be held rigidly in position in relation to one another. Such was the case
of the organs of sight. In early stages of evolution, some of the units had
specialized for carrying minute globules of water. Later, much larger droplets
were carried, millions of units holding between them a still microscopic
globule of life's most precious fluid. Ultimately this function was turned to
good account in vision. Aqueous lenses as large as the eye of an ox, were
supported by a scaffolding of units; while, at focal length from the lens, a
rigid retina of units was held in position. Thus the Martian could produce eyes
of every variety whenever he wanted them, and telescopes and microscopes too.
This production and manipulation of visual organs was of course largely
subconscious, like the focussing mechanism in man. But latterly the Martians
had greatly increased their conscious control of physiological processes; and
it was this achievement which facilitated their remarkable optical
triumphs.</p>
<p>One other physiological function we must note before considering the Martian
psychology. The fully evolved, but as yet uncivilized, Martian had long ago
ceased to depend for his chemicals on wind borne volcanic dust. Instead, he
rested at night on the ground, like a knee-high mist on terrestrial meadows,
and projected specialized tubular groups of units into the soil, like rootlets.
Part of the day also had to be occupied in this manner. Somewhat later this
process was supplemented by devouring the declining plant-life of the planet.
But the final civilized Martians had greatly improved their methods of
exploiting the ground and the sunlight, both by mechanical means and by
artificial specialization of their own organs. Even so, however, as their
activities increased, these vegetable functions became an ever more serious
problem for them. They practised agriculture; but only a very small area of the
arid planet could be induced to bear. It was terrestrial water and terrestrial
vegetation that finally determined them to make the great voyage.</p>
<p><b>3. THE MARTIAN MIND</b></p>
<p>The Martian mind was of a very different type from the terrestrial,--
different, yet at bottom identical. In so strange a body, the mind was
inevitably equipped with alien cravings, and alien manners of apprehending its
environment. And with so different a history, it was confused by prejudices
very unlike those of man. Yet it was none the less mind, concerned in the last
resort with the maintenance and advancement of life, and the exercise of vital
capacities. Fundamentally the Martian was like all other living beings, in that
he delighted in the free working of his body and his mind. Yet superficially,
he was as unlike man in mind as in body.</p>
<p>The most distinctive feature of the Martian, compared with man, was that his
individuality was both far more liable to disruption, and at the same time
immeasurably more capable of direct participation in the minds of other
individuals. The human mind in its solid body maintained its unity and its
dominance over its members in all normal circumstances. Only in disease was man
liable to mental or physical dissociation. On the other hand, he was incapable
of direct contact with other individuals, and the emergence of a "super-mind"
in a group of individuals was quite impossible. The Martian cloudlet, however,
though he fell to pieces physically, and also mentally, far more readily than a
man, might also at any moment wake up to be the intelligent mind of his race,
might begin to perceive with the sense-organs of all other individuals, and
experience thoughts and desires which were, so to speak, the resultant of all
individual thoughts and desires upon some matter of general interest. But
unfortunately, as I shall tell, the common mind of the Martians never woke into
any order of mentality higher than that of the individual.</p>
<p>These differences between the Martian and the human psyche entailed
characteristic advantages and disadvantages. The Martian, immune from man's
inveterate selfishness and spiritual isolation from his fellows, lacked the
mental coherence, the concentrated attention and far-reaching analysis and
synthesis, and again the vivid self-consciousness and relentless
self-criticism, which even the First Men, at their best, had attained in some
degree, and which in the Second Men were still more developed. The Martians,
moreover, were hampered by being almost identical in character. They possessed
perfect harmony; but only through being almost wholly in temperamental unison.
They were all hobbled by their sameness to one another. They were without that
rich diversity of personal character, which enabled the human spirit to cover
so wide a field of mentality. This infinite variety of human nature entailed,
indeed, endless wasteful and cruel personal conflicts in the first, and even to
some extent in the second, species of man; but also it enabled every individual
of developed sympathy to enrich his spirit by intercourse with individuals
whose temperament, thought and ideals differed from his own. And while the
Martians were little troubled by internecine strife and the passion of hate,
they were also almost wholly devoid of the passion of love. The Martian
individual could admire, and be utterly faithful to, the object of his loyalty;
but his admiration was given, not to concrete and uniquely charactered persons
of the same order as himself, but at best to the vaguely conceived "spirit of
the race." Individuals like himself he regarded merely as instruments or organs
of the "super-mind."</p>
<p>This would not have been amiss, had the mind of the race, into which he so
frequently awoke under the influence of the general radiation, been indeed a
mind of higher rank than his own. But it was not. It was but a pooling of the
percipience and thought and will of the cloudlets. Thus it was that the superb
loyalty of the Martians was squandered upon something which was not greater
than themselves in mental calibre, but only in mere bulk.</p>
<p>The Martian cloudlet, like the human animal, had a complex instinctive
nature. By night and day, respectively, he was impelled to perform the
vegetative functions of absorbing chemicals from the ground and energy from the
sunlight. Air and water he also craved, though he dealt with them, of course,
in his own manner. He had also his own characteristic instinctive impulses to
move his "body," both for locomotion and manipulation. Martian civilization
provided an outlet for these cravings, both in the practice of agriculture and
in intricate and wonderfully beautiful cloud-dances and gymnastics. For these
perfectly supple beings rejoiced in executing aerial evolutions, flinging out
wild rhythmical streamers, intertwining with one another in spirals,
concentrating into opaque spheres, cubes, cones, and all sorts of fantastical
volumes. Many of these movements and shapes had intense emotional significance
for them in relation to the operations of their life, and were executed with a
religious fervour and solemnity.</p>
<p>The Martian had also his impulses of fear and pugnacity. In the remote past
these had often been directed against hostile members of his own species; but
since the race had become unified, they found exercise only upon other types of
life and upon inanimate nature. Instinctive gregariousness was, of course,
extremely developed in the Martian at the expense of instinctive
self-assertion. Sexuality the Martian had not; there were no partners in
reproduction. But his impulse to merge physically and mentally with other
individuals, and wake up as the super-mind, had in it much that was
characteristic of sex in man. Parental impulses, of a kind, he knew; but they
were scarcely worthy of the name. He cared only to eject excessive living
matter from his system, and to keep <i>en rapport</i> with the new individual
thus formed, as he would with any other individual. He knew no more of the
human devotion to children as budding personalities than of the subtle
intercourse of male and female temperaments. By the time of the first invasion,
however, reproduction had been greatly restricted; for the planet was fully
populated, and each individual cloudlet was potentially immortal. Among the
Martians there was no "natural death," no spontaneous death through mere
senility. Normally the cloudlet's members kept themselves in repair
indefinitely by the reproduction of their constituent units. Diseases, indeed,
were often fatal. And chief among them was a plague, corresponding to
terrestrial cancer, in which the subvital units lost their sensitivity to
radiation, so that they proceeded to live as primitive organisms and reproduced
without restraint. As they also became parasitic on the unaffected units, the
cloudlet inevitably died.</p>
<p>Like the higher kinds of terrestrial mammal, the Martians had strong
impulses of curiosity. Having also many practical needs to fulfil as a result
of their civilization, and being extremely well equipped by nature for physical
experiment and microscopy, they had gone far in the natural sciences. In
physics, astronomy, chemistry and even in the chemistry of life, man had
nothing to teach them.</p>
<p>The vast corpus of Martian knowledge had taken many thousands of years to
grow. All its stages, and its current achievements were recorded on immense
scrolls of paper made from vegetable pulp, and stored in libraries of stone.
For the Martians, curiously enough, had become great masons, and had covered
much of their planet with buildings of feathery and toppling design, such as
would have been quite impossible on earth. They had no need of buildings for
habitation, save in the arctic regions; but as workshops, granaries, and store
rooms of all sorts, buildings had become very necessary to the Martians.
Moreover these extremely tenuous creatures took a peculiar joy in manipulating
solids. Even their most utilitarian architecture blossomed with a sort of
gothic or arabesque ornateness and fantasy, wherein the ethereal seemed to
torture the substance of solid rocks into its own likeness.</p>
<p>At the time of the invasion, the Martians were still advancing
intellectually; and, indeed, it was through an achievement in theoretical
physics that they were able to leave their planet. They had long known that
minute particles at the upper limit of the atmosphere might be borne into space
by the pressure of the sun's rays at dawn and sunset. And at length they
discovered how to use this pressure as the wind is used in sailing. Dissipating
themselves into their ultra-microscopic units, they contrived to get a purchase
on the gravitational fields of the solar system, as a boat's keel and rudder
get a purchase on the water. Thus they were able to tack across to the earth as
an armada of ultra-microscopic vessels. Arrived in the terrestrial sky, they
re-formed themselves as cloudlets, swam through the dense air to the alpine
summit, and climbed downwards, as a swimmer may climb down a ladder under
water.</p>
<p>This achievement involved very intricate calculations and chemical
inventions, especially for the preservation of life in transit and on an alien
planet. It could never have been done save by beings with far-reaching and
accurate knowledge of the physical world. But though in respect of "natural
knowledge" the Martians were so well advanced, they were extremely backward in
all those spheres which may be called "spiritual knowledge." They had little
understanding of their own mentality, and less of the place of mind in the
cosmos. Though in a sense a highly intelligent species, they were at the same
time wholly lacking in philosophical interest. They scarcely conceived, still
less tackled, the problems which even the First Men had faced so often, though
so vainly. For the Martians there was no mystery in the distinction between
reality and appearance or in the relation of the one and the many, or in the
status of good and evil. Nor were they ever critical of their own ideals. They
aimed whole-heartedly at the advancement of the Martian super-individual. But
what should constitute individuality, and its advancement, they never seriously
considered. And the idea that they were under obligation also toward beings not
included in the Martian system of radiation, proved wholly beyond them. For,
though so clever, they were the most naive of self-deceivers, and had no
insight to see what it is that is truly desirable.</p>
<p><b>4. DELUSIONS OF THE MARTIANS</b></p>
<p>To understand how the Martians tricked themselves, and how they were finally
undone by their own insane will, we must glance at their history.</p>
<p>The civilized Martians constituted the sole remaining variety of a species.
That species itself, in the remote past, had competed with, and exterminated,
many other species of the same general type. Aided by the changing climate, it
had also exterminated almost all the species of the more terrestrial kind of
fauna, and had thereby much reduced the vegetation which it was subsequently to
need and foster so carefully. This victory of the species had been due partly
to its versatility and intelligence, partly to a remarkable zest in ferocity,
partly to its unique powers of radiation and sensitivity to radiation, which
enabled it to act with a coordination impossible even to the most gregarious of
animals. But, as with other species in biological history, the capacity by
which it triumphed became at length a source of weakness. When the species
reached a stage corresponding to primitive human culture, one of its races,
achieving a still higher degree of radiant intercourse and physical unity, was
able to behave as a single vital unit; and so it succeeded in exterminating all
its rivals. Racial conflict had persisted for many thousands of years, but as
soon as the favoured race had developed this almost absolute solidarity of
will, its victory was sweeping, and was clinched by joyous massacre of the
enemy.</p>
<p>But ever afterwards the Martians suffered from the psychological effects of
their victory at the close of the epoch of racial wars. The extreme brutality
with which the other races had been exterminated conflicted with the generous
impulses which civilization had begun to foster, and left a scar upon the
conscience of the victors. In self-defence they persuaded themselves that since
they were so much more admirable than the rest, the extermination was actually
a sacred duty. And their unique value, they said, consisted in their unique
radiational development. Hence arose a gravely insincere tradition and culture,
which finally ruined the species. They had long believed that the physical
basis of consciousness must necessarily be a system of units directly sensitive
to ethereal vibrations, and that organisms dependent on the physical contact of
their parts were too gross to have any experience whatever. After the age of
the racial massacres they sought to persuade themselves that the excellence, or
ethical worth, of any organism depended upon the degree of complexity and unity
of its radiation. Century by century they strengthened their faith in this
vulgar doctrine, and developed also a system of quite irrational delusions and
obsessions based upon an obsessive and passionate lust in radiation.</p>
<p>It would take too long to tell of all these subsidiary fantasies, and of the
ingenious ways in which they were reconciled with the main body of sane
knowledge. But one at least must be mentioned, because of the part it played in
the struggle with man. The Martians knew, of course, that "solid matter" was
solid by virtue of the interlocking of the minute electromagnetic systems
called atoms. Now rigidity had for them somewhat the same significance and
prestige that air, breath, spirit, had for early man. It was in the quasi-solid
form that Martians were physically most potent; and the maintenance of this
form was exhausting and difficult. These facts combined in the Martian
consciousness with the knowledge that rigidity was after all the outcome of
interlocked electro-magnetic systems. Rigidity was thus endowed with a peculiar
sanctity. The superstition was gradually consolidated, by a series of
psychological accidents, into a fanatical admiration of all very rigid
materials, but especially of hard crystals, and above all of diamonds. For
diamonds were extravagantly resistant; and at the same time, as the Martians
themselves put it, diamonds were superb jugglers with the ethereal radiation
called light. Every diamond was therefore a supreme embodiment of the tense
energy and eternal equilibrium of the cosmos, and must be treated with
reverence. In Mars, all known diamonds were exposed to sunlight on the
pinnacles of sacred buildings; and the thought that on the neighbour planet
might be diamonds which were not properly treated, was one motive of the
invasion.</p>
<p>Thus did the Martian mind, unwittingly side-tracked from its true
development, fall sick, and strive ever more fanatically toward mere phantoms
of its goal. In the early stages of the disorder, radiation was merely regarded
as an infallible <i>sign</i> of mentality, and radiative complexity was taken
as an infallible <i>measure</i>, merely, of spiritual worth. But little by
little, radiation and mentality failed to be distinguished, and radiative
organization was actually mistaken for spiritual worth.</p>
<p>In this obsession the Martians resembled somewhat the First Men during their
degenerate phase of servitude to the idea of movement; but with a difference.
For the Martian intelligence was still active, though its products were
severely censored in the name of the "spirit of the race." Every Martian was a
case of dual personality. Not merely was he sometimes a private consciousness,
sometimes the consciousness of the race, but further, even as a private
individual he was in a manner divided against himself. Though his practical
allegiance to the super-individual was absolute, so that he condemned or
ignored all thoughts and impulses that could not be assimilated to the public
consciousness, he did in fact have such thoughts and impulses, as it were in
the deepest recesses of his being. He very seldom noticed that he was having
them, and whenever he did notice it, he was shocked and terrified; yet he did
have them. They constituted an intermittent, sometimes almost a continuous,
critical commentary on all his more reputable experience.</p>
<p>This was the great tragedy of the spirit on Mars. The Martians were in many
ways extremely well equipped for mental progress and for true spiritual
adventure, but through a trick of fortune which had persuaded them to prize
above all else unity and uniformity, they were driven to thwart their own
struggling spirits at every turn.</p>
<p>Far from being superior to the private mind, the public mind which obsessed
every Martian was in many ways actually inferior. It had come into dominance in
a crisis which demanded severe military co-ordination; and though, since that
remote age, it had made great intellectual progress, it remained at heart a
military mind. Its disposition was something between that of a field-marshal
and the God of the ancient Hebrews. A certain English philosopher once
described and praised the fictitious corporate personality of the state, and
named it "Leviathan." The Martian superindividual was Leviathan endowed with
consciousness. In this consciousness there was nothing hut what was easily
assimilated and in accord with tradition. Thus the public mind was always
intellectually and culturally behind the times. Only in respect of practical
social organization did it keep abreast of its own individuals. Intellectual
progress had always been initiated by private individuals, and had only
penetrated the public mind when the mass of individuals had been privately
infected by intercourse with the pioneers. The public consciousness itself
initiated progress only in the sphere of social, military, and economic
organization.</p>
<p>The novel circumstances which were encountered on the earth put the
mentality of the Martians to a supreme test. For the unique enterprise of
tackling a new world demanded the extremes of both public and private activity,
and so led to agonizing conflicts within each private mind. For, while the
undertaking was essentially social and even military, and necessitated very
strict co-ordination and unity of action, the extreme novelty of the new
environment demanded all the resources of the untrammelled private
consciousness. Moreover the Martians encountered much on the earth which made
nonsense of their fundamental assumptions. And in their brightest moments of
private consciousness they sometimes recognized this fact.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER IX. EARTH AND MARS</h3>
<p><b>1. THE SECOND MEN AT BAY</b></p>
<p>Such were the beings that invaded the earth when the Second Men were
gathering their strength for a great venture in artificial evolution. The
motives of the invasion were both economic and religious. The Martians sought
water and vegetable matter; but they came also in a crusading spirit, to
"liberate" the terrestrial diamonds.</p>
<p>Conditions on the earth were very unfavourable to the invaders. Excessive
gravitation troubled them less than might have been expected. Only in their
roost concentrated form did they find it oppressive. More harmful was the
density of the terrestrial atmosphere, which constricted the tenuous animate
cloudlets very painfully, hindering their vital processes, and deadening all
their movements. In their native atmosphere they swam hither and thither with
ease and considerable speed; but the treacly air of the earth hampered them as
a bird's wings are hampered under water. Moreover, owing to their extreme
buoyancy as individual cloudlets, they were scarcely able to dive down so far
as the mountain-tops. Excessive oxygen was also a source of distress; it tended
to put them into a violent fever, which they had only been able to guard
against very imperfectly. Even more damaging was the excessive moisture of the
atmosphere, both through its solvent effect upon certain factors in the
subvital units, and because heavy rain interfered with the physiological
processes of the cloudlets and washed many of their materials to the
ground.</p>
<p>The invaders had also to cope with the tissue of "radio" messages that
constantly enveloped the planet, and tended to interfere with their own organic
systems of radiation. They were prepared for this to some extent; but "beam
wireless" at close range surprised, bewildered, tortured, and finally routed
them; so that they fled back to Mars, leaving many of their number
disintegrated in the terrestrial air.</p>
<p>But the pioneering army (or individual, for throughout the adventure it
maintained unity of consciousness) had much to report at home. As was expected,
there was rich vegetation, and water was even too abundant. There were solid
animals, of the type of the prehistoric Martian fauna, but mostly two-legged
and erect. Experiment had shown that these creatures died when they were pulled
to pieces, and that though the sun's rays affected them by setting up chemical
action in their visual organs, they had no really direct sensitivity to
radiation. Obviously, therefore, they must be unconscious. On the other hand,
the terrestrial atmosphere was permanently alive with radiation of a violent
and incoherent type. It was still uncertain whether these crude ethereal
agitations were natural phenomena, mere careless offshoots of the cosmic mind,
or whether they were emitted by a terrestrial organism. There was reason to
suppose this last to be the case, and that the solid organisms were used by
some hidden terrestrial intelligence as instruments; for there were buildings,
and many of the bipeds were found within the buildings. Moreover, the sudden
violent concentration of beam radiation upon the Martian cloud suggested
purposeful and hostile behaviour. Punitive action had therefore been taken, and
many buildings and bipeds had been destroyed. The physical basis of such a
terrestrial intelligence was still to be discovered. It was certainly not in
the terrestrial clouds, for these had turned out to be insensitive to
radiation. Anyhow, it was obviously an intelligence of very low order, for its
radiation was scarcely at all systematic, and was indeed excessively crude. One
or two unfortunate diamonds had been found in a building. There was no sign
that they were properly venerated.</p>
<p>The Terrestrials, on their side, were left in complete bewilderment by the
extraordinary events of that day. Some had jokingly suggested that since the
strange substance had behaved in a manner obviously vindictive, it must have
been alive and conscious; but no one took the suggestion seriously. Clearly,
however, the thing had been dissipated by beam radiation. That at least was an
important piece of practical knowledge. But theoretical knowledge about the
real nature of the clouds, and their place in the order of the universe, was
for the present wholly lacking. To a race of strong cognitive interest and
splendid scientific achievement, this ignorance was violently disturbing. It
seemed to shake the foundations of the great structure of knowledge. Many
frankly hoped, in spite of the loss of life in the first invasion, that there
would soon be another opportunity for studying these amazing objects, which
were not quite gaseous and not quite solid, not (apparently) organic, yet
capable of behaving in a manner suggestive of life. An opportunity was soon
afforded.</p>
<p>Some years after the first invasion the Martians appeared again, and in far
greater force. This time, moreover, they were almost immune from man's
offensive radiation. Operating simultaneously from all the alpine regions of
the earth, they began to dry up the great rivers at their sources; and,
venturing further afield, they spread over jungle and agricultural land, and
stripped off every leaf. Valley after valley was devastated as though by
endless swarms of locusts, so that in whole countries there was not a green
blade left. The booty was carried off to Mars. Myriads of the subvital units,
specialized for transport of water and food materials, were loaded each with a
few molecules of the treasure, and dispatched to the home planet. The traffic
continued indefinitely. Meanwhile the main body of the Martians proceeded to
explore and loot. They were irresistible. For the absorption of water and
leafage, they spread over the countryside as an impalpable mist which man had
no means to dispel. For the destruction of civilization, they became armies of
gigantic cloud-jellies, far bigger than the brute which had formed itself
during the earlier invasion. Cities were knocked down and flattened, human
beings masticated into pulp. Man tried weapon after weapon in vain.</p>
<p>Presently the Martians discovered the sources of terrestrial radiation in
the innumerable wireless transmitting stations. Here at last was the physical
basis of the terrestrial intelligence! But what a lowly creature! What a
caricature of life! Obviously in respect of complexity and delicacy of
organization these wretched immobile systems of glass, metal and vegetable
compounds were not to be compared with the Martian cloud. Their only feat
seemed to be that they had managed to get control of the unconscious bipeds who
tended them.</p>
<p>In the course of their explorations the Martians also discovered a few more
diamonds. The second human species had outgrown the barbaric lust for
jewellery; but they recognized the beauty of gems and precious metals, and used
them as badges of office. Unfortunately, the Martians, in sacking a town, came
upon a woman who was wearing a large diamond between her breasts; for she was
mayor of the town, and in charge of the evacuation. That the sacred stone
should be used thus, apparently for the mere identification of cattle, shocked
the invaders even more than the discovery of fragments of diamonds in certain
cutting-instruments. The war now began to be waged with all the heroism and
brutality of a crusade. Long after a rich booty of water and vegetable matter
had been secured, long after the Terrestrials had developed an effective means
of attack, and were slaughtering the Martian clouds with high-tension
electricity in the form of artificial lightning flashes, the misguided fanatics
stayed on to rescue the diamonds and carry them away to the mountain tops,
where, years afterwards, climbers discovered them, arranged along the
rock-edges in glittering files, like seabird's eggs. Thither the dying remnant
of the Martian host had transported them with its last strength, scorning to
save itself before the diamonds were borne into the pure mountain air, to be
lodged with dignity. When the Second Men learned of this great hoard of
diamonds, they began to be seriously persuaded that they had been dealing, not
with a freak of physical nature, nor yet (as some said) with swarms of
bacteria, but with organisms of a higher order. For how could the jewels have
been singled out, freed from their metallic settings, and so carefully
regimented on the rocks, save by conscious purpose? The murderous clouds must
have had at least the pilfering mentality of jackdaws, since evidently they had
been fascinated by the treasure. But the very action which revealed their
consciousness suggested also that they were no more intelligent than the merely
instinctive animals. There was no opportunity of correcting this error, since
all the clouds had been destroyed.</p>
<p>The struggle had lasted only a few months. Its material effects on Man were
serious but not insurmountable. Its immediate psychological effect was
invigorating. The Second Men had long been accustomed to a security and
prosperity that were almost utopian. Suddenly they were overwhelmed by a
calamity which was quite unintelligible in terms of their own systematic
knowledge. Their predecessors, in such a situation, would have behaved with
their own characteristic vacillation between the human and the subhuman. They
would have contracted a fever of romantic loyalty, and have performed many
random acts of secretly self-regarding self-sacrifice. They would have sought
profit out of the public disaster, and howled at all who were more fortunate
than themselves. They would have cursed their gods, and looked for more useful
ones. But also, in an incoherent manner, they would sometimes have behaved
reasonably, and would even have risen now and again to the standards of the
Second Men. Wholly unused to large-scale human bloodshed, these more developed
beings suffered an agony of pity for their mangled fellows. But they said
nothing about their pity, and scarcely noticed their own generous grief; for
they were busy with the work of rescue. Suddenly confronted with the need of
extreme loyalty and courage, they exulted in complying, and experienced that
added keenness of spirit which comes when danger is well faced. But it did not
occur to them that they were bearing themselves heroically; for they thought
they were merely behaving reasonably, showing common sense. And if any one
failed in a tight place, they did not call him coward, but gave him a drug to
clear his head; or, if that failed, they put him under a doctor. No doubt,
among the First Men such a policy would not have been justified, for those
bewildered beings had not the clear and commanding vision which kept all sane
members of the second species constant in loyalty.</p>
<p>The immediate psychological effect of the disaster was that it afforded this
very noble race healthful exercise for its great reserves of loyalty and
heroism. Quite apart from this immediate invigoration, however, the first
agony, and those many others which were to follow, influenced the Second Men
for good and ill in a train of effects which may be called spiritual. They had
long known very well that the universe was one in which there could be not only
private but also great public tragedies; and their philosophy did not seek to
conceal this fact. Private tragedy they were able to face with a bland
fortitude, and even an ecstasy of acceptance, such as the earlier species had
but rarely attained. Public tragedy, even world-tragedy, they declared should
be faced in the same spirit. But to know world-tragedy in the abstract, is very
different from the direct acquaintance with it. And now the Second Men, even
while they held their attention earnestly fixed upon the practical work of
defence, were determined to absorb this tragedy into the very depths of their
being, to scrutinize it fearlessly, savour it, digest it, so that its fierce
potency should henceforth be added to them. Therefore they did not curse their
gods, nor supplicate them. They said to themselves, "Thus, and thus, and thus,
is the world. Seeing the depth we shall see also the height; and we shall
praise both."</p>
<p>But their schooling was yet scarcely begun. The Martian invaders were all
dead, but their subvital units were dispersed over the planet as a virulent
ultra-microscopic dust. For, though as members of the living cloud they could
enter the human body without doing permanent harm, now that they were freed
from their functions within the higher organic system, they became a predatory
virus. Breathed into man's lungs, they soon adapted themselves to the new
environment, and threw his tissues into disorder. Each cell that they entered
overthrew its own constitution, like a state which the enemy has successfully
infected with lethal propaganda through a mere handful of agents. Thus, though
man was temporarily victor over the Martian super-individual, his own vital
units were poisoned and destroyed by the subvital remains of his dead enemy. A
race whose physique had been as utopian as its body politic, was reduced to
timid invalidity. And it was left in possession of a devastated planet. The
loss of water proved negligible; but the destruction of vegetation in all the
war areas produced for a while a world famine such as the Second Men had never
known. And the material fabric of civilization had been so broken that many
decades would have to be spent in rebuilding it.</p>
<p>But the physical damage proved far less serious than the physiological.
Earnest research discovered, indeed, a means of checking the infection; and,
after a few years of rigorous purging, the atmosphere and man's flesh were
clean once more. But the generations that had been stricken never recovered;
their tissues had been too seriously corroded. Little by little, of course,
there arose a fresh population of undamaged men and women. But it was a small
population; for the fertility of the stricken had been much reduced. Thus the
earth was now occupied by a small number of healthy persons below middle age
and a very large number of ageing invalids. For many years these cripples had
contrived to carry on the work of the world in spite of their frailty, but
gradually they began to fail both in endurance and competence. For they were
rapidly losing their grip on life, and sinking into a long-drawn-out senility,
from which the Second Men had never before suffered; and at the same time the
young, forced to take up work for which they were not yet equipped, committed
all manner of blunders and crudities of which their elders would never have
been guilty. But such was the general standard of mentality in the second human
species, that what might have been an occasion for recrimination produced an
unparalleled example of human loyalty at its best. The stricken generations
decided almost unanimously that whenever an individual was declared by his
generation to have outlived his competence, he should commit suicide. The
younger generations, partly through affection, partly through dread of their
own incompetence, were at first earnestly opposed to this policy. "Our elders,"
one young man said, "may have declined in vigour, but they are still beloved,
and still wise. We dare not carry on without them." But the elders maintained
their point. Many members of the rising generation were no longer juveniles.
And, if the body politic was to survive the economic crisis, it must now
ruthlessly cut out all its damaged tissues. Accordingly the decision was
carried out. One by one, as occasion demanded, the stricken "chose the peace of
annihilation," leaving a scanty, inexperienced, but vigorous, population to
rebuild what had been destroyed.</p>
<p>Four centuries passed, and then again the Martian clouds appeared in the
sky. Once more devastation and slaughter. Once more a complete failure of the
two mentalities to conceive one another. Once more the Martians were destroyed.
Once more the pulmonary plague, the slow purging, a crippled population, and
generous suicide.</p>
<p>Again, and again they appeared, at irregular intervals for fifty thousand
years. On each occasion the Martians came irresistibly fortified against
whatever weapon humanity had last used against them. And so, by degrees, men
began to recognize that the enemy was no merely instinctive brute, but
intelligent. They therefore made attempts to get in touch with these alien
minds, and make overtures for a peaceful settlement. But since obviously the
negotiations had to be performed by human beings, and since the Martians always
regarded human beings as the mere cattle of the terrestrial intelligence, the
envoys were always either ignored or destroyed.</p>
<p>During each invasion the Martians contrived to dispatch a considerable bulk
of water to Mars. And every time, not satisfied with this material gain, they
stayed too long crusading, until man had found a weapon to circumvent their new
defences; and then they were routed. After each invasion man's recovery was
slower and less complete, while Mars, in spite of the loss of a large
proportion of its population, was in the long run invigorated with the extra
water.</p>
<p><b>2. THE RUIN OF TWO WORLDS</b></p>
<p>Rather more than fifty thousand years after their first appearance, the
Martians secured a permanent footing on the Antarctic table-land and over-ran
Australasia and South Africa. For many centuries they remained in possession of
a large part of the earth's surface, practising a kind of agriculture, studying
terrestrial conditions, and spending much energy on the "liberation" of
diamonds.</p>
<p>During the considerable period before their settlement their mentality had
scarcely changed; but actual habitation of the earth now began to undermine
their self-complacency and their unity. It was borne in upon certain exploring
Martians that the terrestrial bipeds, though insensitive to radiation, were
actually the intelligences of the planet. At first this fact was studiously
shunned, but little by little it gripped the attention of all terrestrial
Martians. At the same time they began to realize that the whole work of
research into terrestrial conditions, and even the social construction of their
colony, depended, not on the public mind, but on private individuals, acting in
their private capacity. The colonial super-individual inspired only the diamond
crusade, and the attempt to extirpate the terrestrial intelligence, or
radiation. These various novel acts of insight woke the Martian colonists from
an age-long dream. They saw that their revered super-individual was scarcely
more than the least common measure of themselves, a bundle of atavistic
fantasies and cravings, knit into one mind and gifted with a certain practical
cunning. A rapid and bewildering spiritual renascence now came over the whole
Martian colony. The central doctrine of it was that what was valuable in the
Martian species was not radiation but mentality. These two utterly different
things had been confused, and even identified, since the dawn of Martian
civilization. At last they were clearly distinguished. A fumbling but sincere
study of mind now began; and distinction was even made between the humbler and
loftier mental activities.</p>
<p>There is no telling whither this renascence might have led, had it run its
course. Possibly in time the Martians might have recognized worth even in minds
other than Martian minds. But such a leap was at first far beyond them. Though
they now understood that human animals were conscious and intelligent, they
regarded them with no sympathy, rather indeed, with increased hostility. They
still rendered allegiance to the Martian race, or brotherhood, just because it
was in a sense one flesh, and, indeed, one mind. For they were concerned not to
abolish but to re-create the public mind of the colony, and even that of Mars
itself.</p>
<p>But the colonial public mind still largely dominated them in their more
somnolent periods, and actually sent some of those who, in their private
phases, were revolutionaries across to Mars for help against the revolutionary
movement. The home planet was quite untouched by the new ideas. Its citizens
co-operated whole-heartedly in an attempt to bring the colonists to their
senses. But in vain. The colonial public mind itself changed its character as
the centuries passed, until it became seriously alienated from Martian
orthodoxy. Presently, indeed, it began to undergo a very strange and thorough
metamorphosis, from which, conceivably, it might have emerged as the noblest
inhabitant of the solar system. Little by little it fell into a kind of
hypnotic trance. That is to say, it ceased to possess the attention of its
private members, yet remained as a unity of their subconscious, or un-noticed
mentality. Radiational unity of the colony was maintained, but only in this
subconscious manner; and it was at that depth that the great metamorphosis
began to take place under the fertilizing influence of the new ideas; which, so
to speak, were generated in the tempest of the fully conscious mental
revolution, and kept on spreading down into the oceanic depth of the
subconsciousness. Such a condition was likely to produce in time the emergence
of a qualitatively new and finer mentality, and to waken at last into a fully
conscious super-individual of higher order than its own members. But meanwhile
this trance of the public consciousness incapacitated the colony for that
prompt and co-ordinated action which had been the most successful faculty of
Martian life. The public mind of the home planet easily destroyed its
disorderly offspring, and set about re-colonizing the earth.</p>
<p>Several times during the next three hundred thousand years this process
repeated itself. The changeless and terribly efficient super-individual of Mars
extirpated its own offspring on the earth, before it could emerge from the
chrysalis. And the tragedy might have been repeated indefinitely, but for
certain changes that took place in humanity.</p>
<p>The first few centuries after the foundation of the Martian colony had been
spent in ceaseless war. But at last, with terribly reduced resources, the
Second Men had reconciled themselves to the fact that they must live in the
same world with their mysterious enemy. Moreover, constant observation of the
Martians began to restore somewhat man's shattered self-confidence. For during
the fifty thousand years before the Martian colony was founded his opinion of
himself had been undermined. He had formerly been used to regarding himself as
the sun's ablest child. Then suddenly a stupendous new phenomenon had defeated
his intelligence. Slowly he had learned that he was at grips with a determined
and versatile rival, and that this rival hailed from a despised planet. Slowly
he had been forced to suspect that he himself was outclassed, outshone, by a
race whose very physique was incomprehensible to man. But after the Martians
had established a permanent colony, human scientists began to discover the real
physiological nature of the Martian organism, and were comforted to find that
it did not make nonsense of human science. Man also learned that the Martians,
though very able in certain spheres, were not really of a high mental type.
These discoveries restored human self-confidence. Man settled down to make the
best of the situation. Impassable barriers of high-power electric current were
devised to keep the Martians out of human territory, and men began patiently to
rebuild their ruined home as best they could. At first there was little respite
from the crusading zeal of the Martians, but in the second millennium this
began to abate, and the two races left one another alone, save for occasional
revivals of Martian fervour. Human civilization was at last reconstructed and
consolidated, though upon a modest scale. Once more, though interrupted now and
again by decades of agony, human beings lived in peace and relative prosperity.
Life was somewhat harder than formerly, and the physique of the race was
definitely less reliable than of old; but men and women still enjoyed
conditions which most nations of the earlier species would have envied. The age
of ceaseless personal sacrifice in service of the stricken community had ended
at last. Once more a wonderful diversity of untrammelled personalities was put
forth. Once more the minds of men and women were devoted without hindrance to
the joy of skilled work, and all the subtleties of personal intercourse. Once
more the passionate interest in one's fellows, which had for so long been
hushed under the all-dominating public calamity, refreshed and enlarged the
mind. Once more there was music, sweet and backward-hearkening towards a golden
past. Once more a wealth of literature, and of the visual arts. Once more
intellectual exploration into the nature of the physical world and the
potentiality of mind. And once more the religious experience, which had for so
long been coarsened and obscured by all the violent distractions and inevitable
self-deceptions of war, seemed to be refining itself under the influence of
reawakened culture.</p>
<p>In such circumstances the earlier and less sensitive human species might
well have prospered indefinitely. Not so the Second Men. For their very
refinement of sensibility made them incapable of shunning an ever-present
conviction that in spite of all their prosperity they were undermined. Though
superficially they seemed to be making a slow but heroic recovery they were at
the same time suffering from a still slower and far more profound spiritual
decline. Generation succeeded generation. Society became almost perfected,
within its limited territory and its limitations of material wealth. The
capacities of personality were developed with extreme subtlety and richness. At
last the race proposed to itself once more its ancient project of re-making
human nature upon a loftier plane. But somehow it had no longer the courage and
self-respect for such work. And so, though there was much talk, nothing was
done. Epoch succeeded epoch, and everything human remained apparently the same.
Like a twig that has been broken but not broken off, man settled down to retain
his life and culture, but could make no progress.</p>
<p>It is almost impossible to describe in a few words the subtle malady of the
spirit that was undermining the Second Men. To say that they were suffering
from an inferiority complex, would not be wholly false, but it would be a
misleading vulgarization of the truth. To say that they had lost faith, both in
themselves and in the universe, would be almost as inadequate. Crudely stated,
their trouble was that, as a species, they had attempted a certain spiritual
feat beyond the scope of their still-primitive flature. Spiritually they had
over-reached themselves, broken every muscle (so to speak) and incapacitated
themselves for any further effort. For they had determined to see their own
racial tragedy as a thing of beauty, and they had failed. It was the obscure
sense of this defeat that had poisoned them, for, being in many respects a very
noble species, they could not simply turn their backs upon their failure and
pursue the old way of life with the accustomed zest and thoroughness.</p>
<p>During the earliest Martian raids, the spiritual leaders of humanity had
preached that the disaster must be an occasion for a supreme religious
experience. While striving mightily to save their civilization, men must yet
(so it was said) learn not merely to endure, but to admire, even the sternest
issue. "Thus and thus is the world. Seeing the depth, we shall see also the
height, and praise both." The whole population had accepted this advice. At
first they had seemed to succeed. Many noble literary expressions were given
forth, which seemed to define and elaborate, and even actually to create in
men's hearts, this supreme experience. But as the centuries passed and the
disasters were repeated, men began to fear that their forefathers had deceived
themselves. Those remote generations had earnestly longed to feel the racial
tragedy as a factor in the cosmic beauty; and at last they had persuaded
themselves that this experience had actually befallen them. But their
descendants were slowly coming to suspect that no such experience had ever
occurred, that it would never occur to any man, and that there was in fact no
such cosmic beauty to be experienced. The First Men would probably, in such a
situation, have swung violently either into spiritual nihilism, or else into
some comforting religious myth. At any rate, they were of too coarse-grained a
nature to be ruined by a trouble so impalpable. Not so the Second Men. For they
realized all too clearly that they were faced with the supreme crux of
existence. And so, age after age the generations clung desperately to the hope
that, if only they could endure a little longer, the light would break in on
them. Even after the Martian colony had been three times established and
destroyed by the orthodox race in Mars, the supreme preoccupation of the human
species was with this religious crux. But afterwards, and very gradually, they
lost heart. For it was borne in on them that either they themselves were by
nature too obtuse to perceive this ultimate excellence of things (an excellence
which they had strong reason to believe in intellectually, although they could
not actually experience it), or the human race had utterly deceived itself, and
the course of cosmic events after all was not significant, but a meaningless
rigmarole.</p>
<p>It was this dilemma that poisoned them. Had they been still physically in
their prime, they might have found fortitude to accept it, and proceed to the
patient exfoliation of such very real excellencies as they were still capable
of creating. But they had lost the vitality which alone could perform such acts
of spiritual abnegation. All the wealth of personality, all the intricacies of
personal relationship, all the complex enterprise of a very great community,
all art, all intellectual research, had lost their savour. It is remarkable
that a purely religious disaster should have warped even the delight of lovers
in one another's bodies, actually taken the flavour out of food, and drawn a
veil between the sun-bather and the sun. But individuals of this species,
unlike their predecessors, were so closely integrated, that none of their
functions could remain healthy while the highest was disordered. Moreover, the
general slight failure of physique, which was the legacy of age-long war, had
resulted in a recurrence of those shattering brain disorders which had dogged
the earliest races of their species. The very horror of the prospect of racial
insanity increased their aberration from reasonableness. Little by little,
shocking perversions of desire began to terrify them. Masochistic and sadistic
orgies alternated with phases of extravagant and ghastly revelry. Acts of
treason against the community, hitherto almost unknown, at last necessitated a
strict police system. Local groups organized predatory raids against one
another. Nations appeared, and all the phobias that make up nationalism.</p>
<p>The Martian colonists, when they observed man's disorganization, prepared,
at the instigation of the home planet, a very great offensive. It so happened
that at this time the colony was going through its phase of enlightenment,
which had always hitherto been followed sooner or later by chastisement from
Mars. Many individuals were at the moment actually toying with the idea of
seeking harmony with man, rather than war. But the public mind of Mars,
outraged by this treason, sought to overwhelm it by instituting a new crusade.
Man's disunion offered a great opportunity.</p>
<p>The first attack produced a remarkable change in the human race. Their
madness seemed suddenly to leave them. Within a few weeks the national
governments had surrendered their sovereignty to a central authority.
Disorders, debauchery, perversions, wholly ceased. The treachery and
self-seeking and corruption, which had by now been customary for many
centuries, suddenly gave place to universal and perfect devotion to the social
cause. The species was apparently once more in its right mind. Everywhere, in
spite of the war's horrors, there was gay brotherliness, combined with a
heroism, which clothed itself in an odd extravagance of jocularity.</p>
<p>The war went ill for man. The general mood changed to cold resolution. And
still victory was with the Martians. Under the influence of the huge fanatical
armies which were poured in from the home planet, the colonists had shed their
tentative pacifism, and sought to vindicate their loyalty by ruthlessness. In
reply the human race deserted its sanity, and succumbed to an uncontrollable
lust for destruction. It was at this stage that a human bacteriologist
announced that he had bred a virus of peculiar deadliness and transmissibility,
with which it would be possible to infect the enemy, but at the cost of
annihilating also the human race. It is significant of the insane condition of
the human population at this time that, when these facts were announced and
broadcast, there was no discussion of the desirability of using this weapon. It
was immediately put in action, the whole human race applauding.</p>
<p>Within a few months the Martian colony had vanished, their home planet
itself had received the infection, and its population was already aware that
nothing could save it. Man's constitution was tougher than that of the animate
clouds, and he appeared to be doomed to a somewhat more lingering death. He
made no effort to save himself, either from the disease which he himself had
propagated, or from the pulmonary plague which was caused by the disintegrated
substance of the dead Martian colony. All the public processes of civilization
began to fall to pieces; for the community was paralysed by disillusion, and by
the expectation of death. Like a bee-hive that has no queen, the whole
population of the earth sank into apathy. Men and women stayed in their homes,
idling, eating whatever food they could procure, sleeping far into the
mornings, and, when at last they rose, listlessly avoiding one another. Only
the children could still be gay, and even they were oppressed by their elders'
gloom. Meanwhile the disease was spreading. Household after household was
stricken, and was left unaided by its neighbours. But the pain in each
individual's flesh was strangely numbed by his more poignant distress in the
spiritual defeat of the race. For such was the high development of this
species, that even physical agony could not distract it from the racial
failure. No one wanted to save himself; and each knew that his neighbours
desired not his aid. Only the children, when the disease crippled them, were
plunged into agony and terror. Tenderly, yet listlessly, their elders would
then give them the last sleep. Meanwhile the unburied dead spread corruption
among the dying. Cities fell still and silent. The corn was not harvested.</p>
<p><b>3. THE THIRD DARK AGE</b></p>
<p>So contagious and so lethal was the new bacterium, that its authors expected
the human race to be wiped out as completely as the Martian colony. Each dying
remnant of humanity, isolated from its fellows by the breakdown of
communications, imagined its own last moments to be the last of man. But by
accident, almost one might say by miracle, a spark of human life was once more
preserved, to hand on the sacred fire. A certain stock or strain of the race,
promiscuously scattered throughout the continents, proved less susceptible than
the majority. And, as the bacterium was less vigorous in a hot climate, a few
of these favoured individuals, who happened to be in the tropical jungle,
recovered from the infection. And of these few a minority recovered also from
the pulmonary plague which, as usual, was propagated from the dead
Martians.</p>
<p>It might have been expected that from this human germ a new civilized
community would have soon arisen. With such brilliant beings as the Second Men,
surely a few generations, or at the most a few thousand years, should have
sufficed to make up the lost ground.</p>
<p>But no. Once more it was in a manner the very excellence of the species that
prevented its recovery, and flung the spirit of Earth into a trance which
lasted longer than the whole previous career of mammals. Again and again, some
thirty million times, the seasons were repeated; and throughout this period man
remained as fixed in bodily and mental character as, formerly, the platypus.
Members of the earlier human species must find it difficult to understand this
prolonged impotence of a race far more developed than themselves. For here
apparently were both the requisites of progressive culture, namely a world rich
and unpossessed, and a race exceptionally able. Yet nothing was done.</p>
<p>When the plagues, and all the immense consequent putrefactions, had worked
themselves off, the few isolated groups of human survivors settled down to an
increasingly indolent tropical life. The fruits of past learning were not
imparted to the young, who therefore grew up in extreme ignorance of almost
everything beyond their immediate experience. At the same time the elder
generation cowed their juniors with vague suggestions of racial defeat and
universal futility. This would not have mattered, had the young themselves been
normal; they would have reacted with fervent optimism. But they themselves were
now by nature incapable of any enthusiasm. For, in a species in which the lower
functions were so strictly disciplined under the higher, the long-drawn-out
spiritual disaster had actually begun to take effect upon the germ-plasm; so
that individuals were doomed before birth to lassitude, and to mentality in a
minor key. The First Men, long ago, had fallen into a kind of racial senility
through a combination of vulgar errors and indulgences. But the second species,
like a boy whose mind has been too soon burdened with grave experience, lived
henceforth in a sleep-walk.</p>
<p>As the generations passed, all the lore of civilization was shed, save the
routine of tropical agriculture and hunting. Not that intelligence itself had
waned. Not that the race had sunk into mere savagery. Lassitude did not prevent
it from readjusting itself to suit its new circumstances. These sleep-walkers
soon invented convenient ways of making, in the home and by hand, much that had
hitherto been made in factories and by mechanical power. Almost without mental
effort they designed and fashioned tolerable instruments out of wood and flint
and bone. But though still intelligent, they had become by disposition, supine,
indifferent. They would exert themselves only under the pressure of urgent
primitive need. No man seemed capable of putting forth the full energy of a
man. Even suffering had lost its poignancy. And no ends seemed worth pursuing
that could not be realized speedily. The sting had gone out of experience. The
soul was calloused against every goad. Men and women worked and played, loved
and suffered; but always in a kind of rapt absent-mindedness. It was as though
they were ever trying to remember something important which escaped them. The
affairs of daily life seemed too trivial to be taken seriously. Yet that other,
and supremely important thing, which alone deserved consideration, was so
obscure that no one had any idea what it was. Nor indeed was anyone aware of
this hypnotic subjection, any more than a sleeper is aware of being asleep.</p>
<p>The minimum of necessary work was performed, and there was even a dreamy
zest in the performance, but nothing which would entail extra toil ever seemed
worth while. And so, when adjustment to the new circumstances of the world had
been achieved, complete stagnation set in. Practical intelligence was easily
able to cope with a slowly changing environment, and even with sudden natural
upheavals such as floods, earthquakes and disease epidemics. Man remained in a
sense master of his world, but he had no idea what to do with his mastery. It
was everywhere assumed that the sane end of living was to spend as many days as
possible in indolence, lying in the shade. Unfortunately human beings had, of
course, many needs which were irksome if not appeased, and so a good deal of
hard work had to be done. Hunger and thirst had to be satisfied. Other
individuals besides oneself had to be cared for, since man was cursed with
sympathy and with a sentiment for the welfare of his group. The only fully
rational behaviour, it was thought, would be general suicide, but irrational
impulses made this impossible. Beatific drugs offered a temporary heaven. But,
far as the Second Men had fallen, they were still too clear-sighted to forget
that such beatitude is outweighed by subsequent misery.</p>
<p>Century by century, epoch by epoch, man glided on in this seemingly
precarious, yet actually unshakable equilibrium. Nothing that happened to him
could disturb his easy dominance over the beasts and over physical nature;
nothing could shock him out of his racial sleep. Long-drawn-out climatic
changes made desert, jungle and grass-land fluctuate like the clouds. As the
years advanced by millions, ordinary geological processes, greatly accentuated
by the immense strains set up by the Patagonian upheaval, remodelled the
surface of the planet. Continents were submerged, or lifted out of the sea,
till presently there was little of the old configuration. And along with these
geological changes went changes in the fauna and flora. The bacterium which had
almost exterminated man had also wrought havoc amongst other mammals. Once more
the planet had to be re-stocked, this time from the few surviving tropical
species. Once more there was a great re-making of old types, only less
revolutionary than that which had followed the Patagonian disaster. And since
the human race remained minute, through the effects of its spiritual fatigue,
other species were favoured. Especially the ruminants and the large carnivora
increased and diversified themselves into many habits and forms.</p>
<p>But the most remarkable of all the biological trains of events in this
period was the history of the Martian subvital units that had been disseminated
by the slaughter of the Martian colony, and had then tormented men and animals
with pulmonary diseases. As the ages passed, certain species of mammals so
readjusted themselves that the Martian virus became not only harmless but
necessary to their well-being. A relationship which was originally that of
parasite and host became in time a true symbiosis, a co-operative partnership,
in which the terrestrial animals gained something of the unique attributes of
the vanished Martian organisms. The time was to come when Man himself should
look with envy on these creatures, and finally make use of the Martian "virus"
for his own enrichment.</p>
<p>But meanwhile, and for many million years, almost all kinds of life were on
the move, save Man. Like a ship-wrecked sailor, he lay exhausted and asleep on
his raft, long after the storm had abated.</p>
<p>But his stagnation was not absolute. Imperceptibly, he was drifting on the
oceanic currents of life, and in a direction far out of his original course.
Little by little, his habit was becoming simpler, less artificial, more animal.
Agriculture faded out, since it was no longer necessary in the luxuriant garden
where man lived. Weapons of defence and of the chase became more precisely
adapted to their restricted purposes, but at the same time less diversified and
more stereotyped. Speech almost vanished; for there was no novelty left in
experience. Familiar facts and familiar emotions were conveyed increasingly by
gestures which were mostly unwitting. Physically, the species had changed
little. Though the natural period of life was greatly reduced, this was due
less to physiological change than to a strange and fatal increase of
absent-mindedness in middle-age. The individual gradually ceased to react to
his environment; so that even if he escaped a violent death, he died of
starvation.</p>
<p>Yet in spite of this great change, the species remained essentially human.
There was no bestialization, such as had formerly produced a race of sub-men.
These tranced remnants of the second human species were not beasts but
innocents, simples, children of nature, perfectly adjusted to their simple
life. In many ways their state was idyllic and enviable. But such was their
dimmed mentality that they were never clearly aware even of the blessings they
had, still less, of course, of the loftier experiences which had kindled and
tortured their ancestors.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER X. THE THIRD MEN IN THE WILDERNESS</h3>
<p><b>1. THE THIRD HUMAN SPECIES</b></p>
<p>We have now followed man's career during some forty million years. The whole
period to be covered by this chronicle is about two thousand million. In this
chapter, and the next, therefore, we must accomplish a swift flight at great
altitude over a tract of time more than three times as long as that which we
have hitherto observed. This great expanse is no desert, but a continent
teeming with variegated life, and many successive and very diverse
civilizations. The myriads of human beings who inhabit it far outnumber the
First and Second Men combined. And the content of each one of these lives is a
universe, rich and poignant as that of any reader of this book.</p>
<p>In spite of the great diversity of this span of man's history, it is a
single movement within the whole symphony, just as the careers of the First and
of the Second Men are each a single movement. Not only is it a period dominated
by a single natural human species and the artificial human species into which
the natural species at length transformed itself; but, also, in spite of
innumerable digressions, a single theme, a single mood of the human will,
informs the whole duration. For now at last man's main energy is devoted to
remaking his own physical and mental nature. Throughout the rise and fall of
many successive cultures this purpose is progressively clarifying itself, and
expressing itself in many tragic and even devastating experiments; until,
toward the close of this immense period, it seems almost to achieve its
end.</p>
<p>When the Second Men had remained in their strange racial trance for about
thirty million years, the obscure forces that make for advancement began to
stir in them once more. This reawakening was favoured by geological accident.
An incursion of the sea gradually isolated some of their number in an island
continent, which was once part of the North Atlantic ocean-bed. The climate of
this island gradually cooled from sub-tropical to temperate and sub-arctic. The
vast change of conditions caused in the imprisoned race a subtle chemical
re-arrangement of the germ-plasm, such that there ensued an epidemic of
biological variation. Many new types appeared, but in the long run one, more
vigorous and better adapted than the rest, crowded out all competitors and
slowly consolidated itself as a new species, the Third Men.</p>
<p>Scarcely more than half the stature of their predecessors, these beings were
proportionally slight and lithe. Their skin was of a sunny brown, covered with
a luminous halo of red-gold hairs, which on the head became a russet mop. Their
golden eyes, reminiscent of the snake, were more enigmatic than profound. Their
faces were compact as a cat's muzzle, their lips full, but subtle at the
corners. Their ears, objects of personal pride and of sexual admiration, were
extremely variable both in individuals and races. These surprising organs,
which would have seemed merely ludicrous to the First Men, were expressive both
of temperament and passing mood. They were immense, delicately involuted, of a
silken texture, and very mobile. They gave an almost bat-like character to the
otherwise somewhat feline heads. But the most distinctive feature of the Third
Men was their great lean hands, on which were six versatile fingers, six
antennae of living steel.</p>
<p>Unlike their predecessors, the Third Men were short-lived. They had a brief
childhood and a brief maturity, followed (in the natural course) by a decade of
senility, and death at about sixty. But such was their abhorrence of
decrepitude, that they seldom allowed themselves to grow old. They preferred to
kill themselves when their mental and physical agility began to decline. Thus,
save in exceptional epochs of their history, very few lived to be fifty.</p>
<p>But though in some respects the third human species fell short of the high
standard of its predecessor, especially in certain of the finer mental
capacities, it was by no means simply degenerate. The admirable sensory
equipment of the second species was retained, and even improved. Vision was no
less ample and precise and colourful. Touch was far more discriminate,
especially in the delicately pointed sixth finger-tip. Hearing was so developed
that a man could run through wooded country blind-fold without colliding with
the trees. Moreover the great range of sounds and rhythms had acquired an
extremely subtle gamut of emotional significance. Music was therefore one of
the main preoccupations of the civilizations of this species.</p>
<p>Mentally the Third Men were indeed very unlike their predecessors. Their
intelligence was in some ways no less agile; but it was more cunning than
intellectual, more practical than theoretical. They were interested more in the
world of sense-experience than in the world of abstract reason, and again far
more in living things than in the lifeless. They excelled in certain kinds of
art, and indeed also in some fields of science. But they were led into science
more through practical, aesthetic or religious needs than through intellectual
curiosity. In mathematics, for instance (helped greatly by the duodecimal
system, which resulted from their having twelve fingers), they became wonderful
calculators; yet they never had the curiosity to inquire into the essential
nature of number. Nor, in physics, were they ever led to discover the more
obscure properties of space. They were, indeed, strangely devoid of curiosity.
Hence, though sometimes capable of a penetrating mystical intuition, they never
seriously disciplined themselves under philosophy, nor tried to relate their
mystical intuitions with the rest of their experience.</p>
<p>In their primitive phases the Third Men were keen hunters; but also, owing
to their strong parental impulses, they were much addicted to making pets of
captured animals. Throughout their career they displayed what earlier races
would have called an uncanny sympathy with, and understanding of, all kinds of
animals and plants. This intuitive insight into the nature of living things,
and this untiring interest in the diversity of vital behaviour, constituted the
dominating impulse throughout the whole career of the third human species. At
the outset they excelled not only as hunters but as herdsmen and domesticators.
By nature they were very apt in every kind of manipulation, but especially in
the manipulation of living things. As a species they were also greatly addicted
to play of all kinds, but especially to manipulative play, and above all to the
playful manipulation of organisms. From the first they performed great feats of
riding on the moose-like deer which they had domesticated. They tamed also a
certain gregarious coursing beast. The pedigree of this great leonine wolf led,
through the tropical survivors of the Martian plague, back to those descendants
of the arctic fox which had over-run the world after the Patagonian disaster.
This animal the Third Men trained not only to help them in shepherding and in
the chase, but also to play intricate hunting games. Between this hound and its
master or mistress there frequently arose a very special relation, a kind of
psychical symbiosis, a dumb intuitive mutual insight, a genuine love, based on
economic co-operation, but strongly toned also, in a manner peculiar to the
third human species, with religious symbolism and frankly sexual intimacy.</p>
<p>As herdsmen and shepherds the Third Men very early practised selective
breeding; and increasingly they became absorbed in the perfecting and enriching
of all types of animals and plants. It was the boast of every local chieftain
not only that the men of his tribe were more manly and the women more beautiful
than all others, but also that the bears in his territory were the noblest and
most bear-like of all bears, that the birds built more perfect nests and were
more skilful fliers and singers than birds elsewhere. And so on, through all
the animal and vegetable races.</p>
<p>This biological control was achieved at first by simple breeding
experiments, but later and increasingly by crude physiological manipulation of
the young animal, the foetus and (later still) the germ-plasm. Hence arose a
perennial conflict, which often caused wars of a truly religious bitterness,
between the tender-hearted, who shrank from the infliction of pain, and the
passionately manipulative, who willed to create at whatever cost. This
conflict, indeed, was waged not only between individuals but within each mind;
for all were innately hunters and manipulators, but also all had intuitive
sympathy even with the quarry which they tormented. The trouble was increased
by a strain of sheer cruelty which occurred even in the most tender-hearted.
This sadism was at bottom an expression of an almost mystical reverence for
sensory experience. Physical pain, being the most intense of all sensed
qualities, was apt to be thought the most excellent. It might be expected that
this would lead rather to self-torture than to cruelty. Sometimes it did. But
in general those who could not appreciate pain in their own flesh were yet able
to persuade themselves that in inflicting pain on lower animals they were
creating vivid psychic reality, and therefore high excellence. It was just the
intense reality of pain, they said, that made it intolerable to men and
animals. Seen with the detachment of the divine mind, it appeared in its true
beauty. And even man, they declared, could appreciate its excellence when it
occurred not in men but in animals.</p>
<p>Though the Third Men lacked interest in systematic thought, their minds were
often concerned with matters outside the fields of private and social economy.
They experienced not only aesthetic but mystical cravings. And though they were
without any appreciation of those finer beauties of human personality, which
their predecessors had admired as the highest attainment of life on the planet,
the Third Men themselves, in their own way, sought to make the best of human
nature, and indeed of animal nature. Man they regarded in two aspects. In the
first place he was the noblest of all animals, gifted with unique aptitudes. He
was, as was sometimes said, God's chief work of art. But secondly, since his
special virtues were his insight into the nature of all living things and his
manipulative capacity, he was himself God's eye and God's hand. These
convictions were expressed over and over again in the religions of the Third
Men, by the image of the deity as a composite animal, with wings of the
albatross, jaws of the great wolf-dog, feet of the deer, and so on. For the
human element was represented in this deity by the hands, the eyes, and the
sexual organs of man. And between the divine hands lay the world, with all its
diverse population. Often the world was represented as being the fruit of God's
primitive potency, but also as in process of being drastically altered and
tortured into perfection by the hands.</p>
<p>Most of the cultures of the Third Men were dominated by this obscure worship
of Life as an all-pervading spirit, expressing itself in myriad diverse
individuals. And at the same time the intuitive loyalty to living things and to
a vaguely conceived life-force was often complicated by sadism. For in the
first place it was recognized, of course, that what is valued by higher beings
may be intolerable to lower; and, as has been said, pain itself was thought to
be a superior excellence of this kind. And again in a second manner sadism
expressed itself. The worship of Life, as agent or subject, was complemented by
worship of environment, as object to life's subjectivity, as that which remains
ever foreign to life, thwarting its enterprises, torturing it, yet making it
possible, and, by its very resistance, goading it into nobler expressions.
Pain, it was said, was the most vivid apprehension of the sacred and universal
Object.</p>
<p>The thought of the third human species was never systematic. But in some
such manner as the foregoing it strove to rationalize its obscure intuition of
the beauty which includes at once Life's victory and defeat.</p>
<p><b>2. DIGRESSIONS OF THE THIRD MEN</b></p>
<p>Such, in brief, was the physical and mental nature of the third human
species. In spite of innumerable distractions, the spirit of the Third Men kept
on returning to follow up the thread of biological interest through a thousand
variegated cultures. Again and again folk after folk would clamber out of
savagery and barbarism into relative enlightenment; and mostly, though not
always, the main theme of this enlightenment was some special mood either of
biological creativeness or of sadism, or of both. To a man born into such a
society, no dominant characteristic would be apparent. He would be impressed
rather by the many-sidedness of human activities in his time. He would note a
wealth of personal intercourse, of social organization and industrial
invention, of art and speculation, all set in that universal matrix, the
private struggle to preserve or express the self. Yet the historian may often
see in a society, over and above this multifarious proliferation, some one
controlling theme.</p>
<p>Again and again, then, at intervals of a few thousand or a few hundred
thousand years, man's whim was imposed upon the fauna and flora of the earth,
and at length directed to the task of remaking man himself. Again and again,
through a diversity of causes, the effort collapsed, and the species sank once
more into chaos. Sometimes indeed there was an interlude of culture in some
quite different key. Once, early in the history of the species, and before its
nature had become fixed, there occurred a nonindustrial civilization of a
genuinely intellectual kind, almost like that of Greece. Sometimes, but not
often, the third human species fooled itself into an extravagantly industrial
world civilization, in the manner of the Americanized First Men. In general its
interest was too much concerned with other matters to become entangled with
mechanical devices. But on three occasions at least it succumbed. Of these
civilizations one derived its main power from wind and falling water, one from
the tides, one from the earth's internal heat. The first, saved from the worst
evils of industrialism by the limitations of its power, lasted some hundred
thousand years in barren equilibrium, until it was destroyed by an obscure
bacterium. The second was fortunately brief; but its fifty thousand years of
unbridled waste of tidal energy was enough to interfere appreciably with the
orbit of the moon. This world-order collapsed at length in a series of
industrial wars. The third endured a quarter of a million years as a
brilliantly sane and efficient world organization. Throughout most of its
existence there was almost complete social harmony with scarcely as much
internal strife as occurs in a bee-hive. But once more civilization came at
length to grief, this time through the misguided effort to breed special human
types for specialized industrial pursuits.</p>
<p>Industrialism, however, was never more than a digression, a lengthy and
disastrous irrelevance in the life of this species. There were other
digressions. There were for instance cultures, enduring sometimes for several
thousand years, which were predominantly musical. This could never have
occurred among the First Men; but, as was said, the third species was
peculiarly developed in hearing, and in emotional sensitivity to sound and
rhythm. Consequently, just as the First Men at their height were led into the
wilderness by an irrational obsession with mechanical contrivances, just as the
Third Men themselves were many times undone by their own interest in biological
control, so, now and again, it was their musical gift that hypnotized them.</p>
<p>Of these predominantly musical cultures the most remarkable was one in which
music and religion combined to form a tyranny no less rigid than that of
religion and science in the remote past. It is worth while to dwell on one of
these episodes for a few moments.</p>
<p>The Third Men were very subject to a craving for personal immortality. Their
lives were brief, their love of life intense. It seemed to them a tragic flaw
in the nature of existence that the melody of the individual life must either
fade into a dreary senility or be cut short, never to be repeated. Now music
had a special significance for this race. So intense was their experience of
it, that they were ready to regard it as in some manner the underlying reality
of all things. In leisure hours, snatched from a toilful and often tragic life,
groups of peasants would seek to conjure about them by song or pipe or viol a
universe more beautiful, more real, than that of daily labour. Concentrating
their sensitive hearing upon the inexhaustible diversity of tone and rhythm,
they would seem to themselves to be possessed by the living presence of music,
and to be transported thereby into a lovelier world. No wonder they believed
that every melody was a spirit, leading a life of its own within the universe
of music. No wonder they imagined that a symphony or chorus was itself a single
spirit inhering in all its members. No wonder it seemed to them that when men
and women listened to great music, the barriers of their individuality were
broken down, so that they became one soul through communion with the music.</p>
<p>The prophet was born in a highland village where the native faith in music
was intense, though quite unformulated. In time he learnt to raise his peasant
audiences to the most extravagant joy and the most delicious sorrow. Then at
last he began to think, and to expound his thoughts with the authority of a
great bard. Easily he persuaded men that music was the reality, and all else
illusion, that the living spirit of the universe was pure music, and that each
individual animal and man, though he had a body that must die and vanish for
ever, had also a soul that was music and eternal. A melody, he said, is the
most fleeting of things. It happens and ceases. The great silence devours it,
and seemingly annihilates it. Passage is essential to its being. Yet though for
a melody, to halt is to die a violent death, all music, the prophet affirmed,
has also eternal life. After silence it may occur again, with all its freshness
and aliveness. Time cannot age it; for its home is in a country outside time.
And that country, thus the young musician earnestly preached, is also the home
land of every man and woman, nay of every living thing that has any gift of
music. Those who seek immortality, must strive to waken their tranced souls
into melody and harmony. And according to their degree of musical originality
and proficiency will be their standing in the eternal life.</p>
<p>The doctrine, and the impassioned melodies of the prophet, spread like fire.
Instrumental and vocal music sounded from every pasture and corn plot. The
government tried to suppress it, partly because it was thought to interfere
with agricultural productivity, largely because its passionate significance
reverberated even in the hearts of courtly ladies, and threatened to undo the
refinement of centuries. Nay, the social order itself began to crumble. For
many began openly to declare that what mattered was not aristocratic birth, nor
even proficiency in the time-honoured musical forms (so much prized by the
leisured), but the gift of spontaneous emotional expression in rhythm and
harmony. Persecution strengthened the new faith with a glorious company of
martyrs who, it was affirmed, sang triumphantly even in the flames.</p>
<p>One day the sacred monarch himself, hitherto a prisoner within the
conventions, declared half sincerely, half by policy, that he was converted to
his people's faith. Bureaucracy gave place to an enlightened dictatorship, the
monarch assumed the title of Supreme Melody, and the whole social order was
re-fashioned, more to the taste of the peasants. The subtle prince, backed by
the crusading zeal of his people, and favoured by the rapid spontaneous spread
of the faith in all lands, conquered the whole world, and founded the Universal
Church of Harmony. The prophet himself, meanwhile, dismayed by his own too
facile success, had retired into the mountains to perfect his art under the
influence of their great quiet, or the music of wind, thunder and waterfall.
Presently, however, the silence of the fells was shattered by the blare of
military bands and ecclesiastical choirs, which the emperor had sent to salute
him and conduct him to the metropolis. He was secured, though not without a
scrimmage, and lodged in the High Temple of Music. There he was kept a
prisoner, dubbed God's Big Noise, and used by the world-government as an oracle
needing interpretation. In a few years the official music of the temple, and of
deputations from all over the world, drove him into raving madness; in which
state he was the more useful to the authorities.</p>
<p>Thus was founded the Holy Empire of Music, which gave order and purpose to
the species for a thousand years. The sayings of the prophet, interpreted by a
series of able rulers, became the foundation of a great system of law which
gradually supplanted all local codes by virtue of its divine authority. Its
root was madness; but its final expression was intricate common sense,
decorated with harmless and precious flowers of folly. Throughout, the
individual was wisely, but tacitly, regarded as a biological organism having
definite needs or rights and definite social obligations; but the language in
which this principle was expressed and elaborated was a jargon based on the
fiction that every human being was a melody, demanding completion within a
greater musical theme of society.</p>
<p>Toward the close of this millennium of order a schism occurred among the
devout. A new and fervent sect declared that the true spirit of the musical
religion had been stifled by ecclesiasticism. The founder of the religion had
preached salvation by individual musical experience, by an intensely emotional
communion with the Divine Music. But little by little, so it was said, the
church had lost sight of this central truth, and had substituted a barren
interest in the objective forms and principles of melody and counterpoint.
Salvation, in the official view, was not to be had by subjective experience,
but by keeping the rules of an obscure musical technique. And what was this
technique? Instead of making the social order a practical expression of the
divine law of music, churchmen and statesmen had misinterpreted these divine
laws to suit mere social convenience, until the true spirit of music had been
lost. Meanwhile on the other side a counter-revival took place. The
self-centred and soul-saving mood of the rebels was ridiculed. Men were urged
to care rather for the divine and exquisitely ordered forms of music itself
than for their own emotion.</p>
<p>It was amongst the rebel peoples that the biological interest of the race,
hitherto subordinate, came into its own. Mating, at least among the more devout
sort of women, began to be influenced by the desire to have children who should
be of outstanding musical brilliance and sensitivity. Biological sciences were
rudimentary, but the general principle of selective breeding was known. Within
a century this policy of breeding for music, or breeding "soul," developed from
a private idiosyncrasy into a racial obsession. It was so far successful that
after a while a new type became common, and thrived upon the approbation and
devotion of ordinary persons. These new beings were indeed extravagantly
sensitive to music, so much so that the song of a sky-lark caused them serious
torture by its banality, and in response to any human music of the kind which
they approved, they invariably fell into a trance. Under the stimulus of music
which was not to their taste they were apt to run amok and murder the
performers.</p>
<p>We need not pause to trace the stages by which an infatuated race gradually
submitted itself to the whims of these creatures of human folly, until for a
brief period they became the tyrannical ruling caste of a musical theocracy.
Nor need we observe how they reduced society to chaos; and how at length an age
of confusion and murder brought mankind once more to its senses, but also into
so bitter a disillusionment that the effort to re-orientate the whole direction
of its endeavour lacked determination. Civilization fell to pieces and was not
rebuilt till after the race had lain fallow for some thousands of years.</p>
<p>So ended perhaps the most pathetic of racial delusions. Born of a genuine
and potent aesthetic experience, it retained a certain crazy nobility even to
the end.</p>
<p>Many scores of other cultures occurred, separated often by long ages of
barbarism, but they must be ignored in this brief chronicle. The great majority
of them were mainly biological in spirit. Thus one was dominated by an
obsessive interest in flight, and therefore in birds, another by the concept of
metabolism, several by sexual creativity, and very many by some general but
mostly unenlightened policy of eugenics. All these we must pass over, so that
we may descend to watch the greatest of all the races of the third species
torture itself into a new form.</p>
<p><b>3. THE VITAL ART</b></p>
<p>It was after an unusually long period of eclipse that the spirit of the
third human species attained its greatest brilliance. We need not watch the
stages by which this enlightenment was reached. Suffice it that the upshot was
a very remarkable civilization, if such a word can be applied to an order in
which agglomerations of architecture were unknown, clothing was used only when
needed for warmth, and such industrial development as occurred was wholly
subordinated to other activities.</p>
<p>Early in the history of this culture the requirements of hunting and
agriculture, and the spontaneous impulse to manipulate live things, gave rise
to a primitive but serviceable system of biological knowledge. Not until the
culture had unified the whole planet, did biology itself give rise to chemistry
and physics. At the same time a well-controlled industrialism, based first on
wind and water, and later on subterranean heat, afforded the race all the
material luxuries it desired, and much leisure from the business of keeping
itself in existence. Had there not already existed a more powerful and
all-dominating interest, industrialism itself would probably have hypnotized
the race, as it had so many others. But in this race the interest in live
things, which characterized the whole species, was dominant before
industrialism began. Egotism among the Third Men could not be satisfied by the
exercise of economic power, nor by the mere ostentation of wealth. Not that the
race was immune from egotism. On the contrary, it had lost almost all that
spontaneous altruism which had distinguished the Second Men. But in most
periods the only kind of personal ostentation which appealed to the Third Men
was directly connected with the primitive interest in "pecunia." To own many
and noble beasts, whether they were economically productive or not, was ever
the mark of respectability. The vulgar, indeed, were content with mere numbers,
or at most with the conventional virtues of the recognized breeds. But the more
refined pursued, and flaunted, certain very exact principles of aesthetic
excellence in their control of living forms.</p>
<p>In fact, as the race gained biological insight, it developed a very
remarkable new art, which we may call "plastic vital art." This was to become
the chief vehicle of expression of the new culture. It was practised
universally, and with religious fervour; for it was very closely connected with
the belief in a life-god. The canons of this art, and the precepts of this
religion, fluctuated from age to age, but in general certain basic principles
were accepted. Or rather, though there was almost always universal agreement
that the practice of vital art was the supreme goal, and should not be treated
in a utilitarian spirit, there were two conflicting sets of principles which
were favoured by opposed sets. One mode of vital art sought to evoke the full
potentiality of each natural type as a harmonious and perfected nature, or to
produce new types equally harmonious. The other prided itself on producing
monsters. Sometimes a single capacity was developed at the expense of the
harmony and welfare of the organism as a whole. Thus a bird was produced which
could fly faster than any other bird; but it could neither reproduce nor even
feed, and therefore had to be maintained artificially. Sometimes, on the other
hand, certain characters incompatible in nature were forced upon a single
organism, and maintained in precarious and torturing equilibrium. To give
examples, one much-talked-of feat was the production of a carnivorous mammal in
which the fore limbs had assumed the structure of a bird's wings, complete with
feathers. This creature could not fly, since its body was wrongly proportioned.
Its only mode of locomotion was a staggering run with outstretched wings. Other
examples of monstrosity were an eagle with twin heads, and a deer in which,
with incredible ingenuity, the artists had induced the tail to develop as a
head, with brain, sense organs, and jaws. In this monstrous art, interest in
living things was infected with sadism through the preoccupation with fate,
especially internal fate, as the divinity that shapes our ends. In its more
vulgar forms, of course, it was a crude expression of egotistical lust in
power.</p>
<p>This <i>motif</i> of the monstrous and the self-discrepant was less
prominent than the other, the <i>motif</i> of harmonious perfection; but at all
times it was apt to exercise at least a subconscious influence. The supreme aim
of the dominant, perfection-seeking movement was to embellish the planet with a
very diverse fauna and flora, with the human race as at once the crown and the
instrument of terrestrial life. Each species, and each variety, was to have its
place and fulfil its part in the great cycle of living types. Each was to be
internally perfected to its function. It must have no harmful relics of a past
manner of life; and its capacities must be in true accord with one another.
But, to repeat, the supreme aim was not concerned merely with individual types,
but with the whole vital economy of the planet. Thus, though there were to be
types of every order from the most humble bacterium up to man, it was contrary
to the canon of orthodox sacred art that any type should thrive by the
destruction of a type higher than itself. In the sadistic mode of the art,
however, a peculiarly exquisite tragic beauty was said to inhere in situations
in which a lowly type exterminated a higher. There were occasions in the
history of the race when the two sects indulged in bloody conflict because the
sadists kept devising parasites to undermine the noble products of the
orthodox.</p>
<p>Of those who practised vital art, and all did so to some extent, a few,
though they deliberately rejected the orthodox principles, gained notoriety and
even fame by their grotesques; while others, less fortunate, were ready to
accept ostracism and even martyrdom, declaring that what they had produced was
a significant symbol of the universal tragedy of vital nature. The great
majority, however, accepted the sacred canon. They had therefore to choose one
or other of certain recognized modes of expression. For instance, they might
seek to enhance some extant type of organism, both by perfecting its capacities
and by eliminating from it all that was harmful or useless. Or else, a more
original and precarious work, they might set about creating a new type to fill
a niche in the world, which had not yet been occupied. For this end they would
select a suitable organism, and seek to remake it upon a new plan, striving to
produce a creature of perfectly harmonious nature precisely adapted to the new
way of life. In this kind of work sundry strict aesthetic principles must be
observed. Thus it was considered bad art to reduce a higher type to a lower, or
in any manner to waste the capacities of a type. And further, since the true
end of art was not the production of individual types, but the production of a
world-wide and perfectly systematic fauna and flora, it was inadmissible to
harm even accidentally any type higher than that which it was intended to
produce. For the practice of orthodox vital art was regarded as a co-operative
enterprise. The ultimate artist, under God, was mankind as a whole; the
ultimate work of art must be an ever more subtle garment of living forms for
the adornment of the planet, and the delight of the supreme Artist, in relation
to whom man was both creature and instrument.</p>
<p>Little was achieved, of course, until the applied biological sciences had
advanced far beyond the high-water mark attained long ago during the career of
the Second Men. Much more was needed than the rule-of-thumb principles of
earlier breeders. It took this brightest of all the races of the third species
many thousands of years of research to discover the more delicate principles of
heredity, and to devise a technique by which the actual hereditary factors in
the germ could be manipulated. It was this increasing penetration of biology
itself that opened up the deeper regions of chemistry and physics. And owing to
this historical sequence the latter sciences were conceived in a biological
manner, with the electron as the basic organism, and the cosmos as an organic
whole.</p>
<p>Imagine, then, a planet organized almost as a vast system of botanical and
zoological gardens, or wild parks, interspersed with agriculture and industry.
In every great centre of communications occurred annual and monthly shows. The
latest creations were put through their paces, judged by the high priests of
vital art, awarded distinctions, and consecrated with religious ceremony. At
these shows some of the exhibits would be utilitarian, others purely aesthetic.
There might be improved grains, vegetables, cattle, some exceptionally
intelligent or sturdy variety of herdsman's dog, or a new micro-organism with
some special function in agriculture or in human digestion. But also there
would be the latest achievements in pure vital art. Great sleek-limbed,
hornless, racing deer, birds or mammals adapted to some hitherto unfulfilled
role, bears intended to outclass all existing varieties in the struggle for
existence, ants with specialized organs and instincts, improvements in the
relations of parasite and host, so as to make a true symbiosis in which the
host profited by the parasite. And so on. And everywhere there would be the
little unclad ruddy faun-like beings who had created these marvels. Shy
forest-dwelling folk of Gurkha physique would stand beside their antelopes,
vultures, or new great cat-like prowlers. A grave young woman might cause a
stir by entering the grounds followed by several gigantic bears. Crowds would
perhaps press round to examine the creatures' teeth or limbs, and she might
scold the meddlers away from her patient flock. For the normal relation between
man and beast at this time was one of perfect amity, rising, sometimes, in the
case of domesticated animals, to an exquisite, almost painful, mutual
adoration. Even the wild beasts never troubled to avoid man, still less to
attack him, save in the special circumstances of the hunt and the sacred
gladiatorial show.</p>
<p>These last need special notice. The powers of combat in beasts were admired
no less than other powers. Men and women alike experienced a savage joy, almost
an ecstasy, in the spectacle of mortal combat. Consequently there were formal
occasions when different kinds of beasts were enraged against one another and
allowed to fight to the death. Not only so, but also there were sacred contests
between beast and man, between man and man, between woman and woman, and, most
surprising to the readers of this book, between woman and man. For in this
species, woman in her prime was not physically weaker than her partner.</p>
<p><b>4. CONFLICTING POLICIES</b></p>
<p>Almost from the first, vital art had been applied to some extent to man
himself, though with hesitation. Certain great improvements had been effected,
but only improvements about which there could be no two opinions. The many
diseases and abnormalities left over from past civilizations were patiently
abolished, and various more fundamental defects were remedied. For instance,
teeth, digestion, glandular equipment and the circulatory system were greatly
improved. Extreme good health and considerable physical beauty became
universal. Child-bearing was made a painless and health-giving process.
Senility was postponed. The standard of practical intelligence was appreciably
raised. These reforms were made possible by a vast concerted effort of research
and experiment supported by the world community. But private enterprise was
also effective, for the relation between the sexes was much more consciously
dominated by the thought of offspring than among the First Men. Every
individual knew the characteristics of his or her hereditary composition, and
knew what kinds of offspring were to be expected from intercourse of different
hereditary types. Thus in courtship the young man was not content to persuade
his beloved that his mind was destined by nature to afford her mind joyful
completion; he sought also to persuade her that with his help she might bear
children of a peculiar excellence. Consequently there was at all times going on
a process of selective breeding towards the conventionally ideal type. In
certain respects the ideal remained constant for many thousands of years. It
included health, cat-like agility, manipulative dexterity, musical sensitivity,
refined perception of rightness and wrongness in the sphere of vital art, and
an intuitive practical judgment in all the affairs of life. Longevity, and the
abolition of senility, were also sought, and partially attained. Waves of
fashion sometimes directed sexual selection toward prowess in combat, or some
special type of facial expression or vocal powers. But these fleeting whims
were negligible. Only the permanently desired characters were actually
intensified by private selective breeding.</p>
<p>But at length there came a time when more ambitious aims were entertained.
The world-community was now a highly organized theocratic hierarchy, strictly
but on the whole benevolently ruled by a supreme council of vital priests and
biologists. Each individual, down to the humblest agricultural worker, had his
special niche in society, allotted him by the supreme council or its delegates,
according to his known heredity and the needs of society. This system, of
course, sometimes led to abuse, but mostly it worked without serious friction.
Such was the precision of biological knowledge that each person's mental
calibre and special aptitudes were known beyond dispute, and rebellion against
his lot in society would have been rebellion against his own heredity. This
fact was universally known, and accepted without regret. A man had enough scope
for emulation and triumph among his peers, without indulging in vague attempts
to transcend his own nature, by rising into a superior hierarchical order. This
state of affairs would have been impossible had there not been universal faith
in the religion of life and the truth of biological science. Also it would have
been impossible had not all normal persons been active practitioners of the
sacred vital art, upon a plane suited to their capacity. Every individual adult
of the rather scanty world-population regarded himself or herself as a creative
artist, in however humble a sphere. And in general he, or she, was so
fascinated by the work, that he was well content to leave social organization
and control to those who were fitted for it. Moreover, at the back of every
mind was the conception of society itself as an organism of specialized
members. The strong sentiment for organized humanity tended, in this race, to
master even its strong egotistical impulses, though not without a struggle.</p>
<p>It was such a society, almost unbelievable to the First Men, that now set
about remaking human nature. Unfortunately there were conflicting views about
the goal. The orthodox desired only to continue the work that had for long been
on foot; though they proposed greater enterprise and co-ordination. They would
perfect man's body, but upon its present plan; they would perfect his mind, but
without seeking to introduce anything new in essence. His physique,
percipience, memory, intelligence and emotional nature, should be improved
almost beyond recognition; but they must, it was said, remain essentially what
they always had been.</p>
<p>A second party, however, finally persuaded orthodox opinion to amplify
itself in one important respect. As has already been said, the Third Men were
prone to phases of preoccupation with the ancient craving for personal
immortality. This craving had often been strong among the First Men; and even
the Second Men, in spite of their great gift of detachment, had sometimes
allowed their admiration for human personality to persuade them that souls must
live for ever. The short-lived and untheoretical Third Men, with their passion
for living things of all kinds, and all the diversity of vital behaviour,
conceived immortality in a variety of manners. In their final culture they
imagined that at death all living things whom the Life God approved passed into
another world, much like the familiar world, but happier. There they were said
to live in the presence of the deity, serving him in untrammelled vital
creativeness of sundry kinds.</p>
<p>Now it was believed that communication might occur between the two worlds,
and that the highest type of terrestrial life was that which communicated most
effectively, and further that the time had now arrived for much fuller
revelation of the life to come. It was therefore proposed to breed highly
specialized communicants whose office should be to guide this world by means of
advice from the other. As among the First Men, this communication with the
unseen world was believed to take place in the mediumistic trance. The new
enterprise, then, was to breed extremely sensitive mediums, and to increase the
mediumistic powers of the average individual.</p>
<p>There was yet another party, whose aim was very different. Man, they said,
is a very noble organism. We have dealt with other organisms so as to enhance
in each its noblest attributes. It is time to do the same with man. What is
most distinctive in man is intelligent manipulation, brain and hand. Now hand
is really outclassed by modern mechanisms, but brain will never be outclassed.
Therefore we must breed strictly for brain, for intelligent co-ordination of
behaviour. All the organic functions which can be performed by machinery, must
be relegated to machinery, so that the whole vitality of the organism may be
devoted to brain-building and brain-working. We must produce an organism which
shall be no mere bundle of relics left over from its primitive ancestors and
precariously ruled by a glimmer of intelligence. We must produce a man who is
nothing but man. When we have done this we can, if we like, ask him to find out
the truth about immortality. And also, we can safely surrender to him the
control of all human affairs.</p>
<p>The governing caste were strongly opposed to this policy. They declared
that, if it succeeded, it would only produce a most inharmonious being whose
nature would violate all the principles of vital aesthetics. Man, they said,
was essentially an animal, though uniquely gifted. His whole nature must be
developed, not one faculty at the expense of others. In arguing thus, they were
probably influenced partly by the fear of losing their authority; but their
arguments were cogent, and the majority of the community agreed with them.
Nevertheless a small group of the governors themselves were determined to carry
through the enterprise in secret.</p>
<p>There was no need of secrecy in breeding communicants. The world state
encouraged this policy and even set up institutions for its pursuit.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER XI. MAN REMAKES HIMSELF</h3>
<p><b>1. THE FIRST OF THE GREAT BRAINS</b></p>
<p>Those who sought to produce a super-brain embarked upon a great enterprise
of research and experiment in a remote corner of the planet. It is unnecessary
to tell in detail how they fared. Working first in secret, they later strove to
persuade the world to approve of their scheme, but only succeeded in dividing
mankind into two parties. The body politic was torn asunder. There were
religious wars. But after a few centuries of intermittent bloodshed the two
sects, those who sought to produce communicants and those who sought the
super-brain, settled down in different regions to pursue their respective aims
unmolested. In time each developed into a kind of nation, united by a religious
faith and crusading spirit. There was little cultural intercourse between the
two.</p>
<p>Those who desired to produce the super-brain employed four methods, namely
selective breeding, manipulation of the hereditary factors in germ cells
(cultivated in the laboratory), manipulation of the fertilized ovum (cultivated
also in the laboratory), and manipulation of the growing body. At first they
produced innumerable tragic abortions. These we need not observe. But at
length, several thousand years after the earliest experiments, something was
produced which seemed to promise success. A human ovum had been carefully
selected, fertilized in the laboratory, and largely reorganized by artificial
means. By inhibiting the growth of the embryo's body, and the lower organs of
the brain itself, and at the same time greatly stimulating the growth of the
cerebral hemispheres, the dauntless experimenters succeeded at last in creating
an organism which consisted of a brain twelve feet across, and a body most of
which was reduced to a mere vestige upon the under-surface of the brain. The
only parts of the body which were allowed to attain the natural size were the
arms and hands. These sinewy organs of manipulation were induced to key
themselves at the shoulders into the solid masonry which formed the creature's
house. Thus they were able to get a purchase for their work. The hands were the
normal six-fingered hands of the Third Men, very greatly enlarged and improved.
The fantastic organism was generated and matured in a building designed to
house both it and the complicated machinery which was necessary to keep it
alive. A self-regulating pump, electrically driven, served it as a heart. A
chemical factory poured the necessary materials into its blood and removed
waste products, thus taking the place of digestive organs and the normal
battery of glands. Its lungs consisted of a great room full of oxidizing tubes,
through which a constant wind was driven by an electric fan. The same fan
forced air through the artificial organs of speech. These organs were so
constructed that the natural nerve-fibres, issuing from the speech centres of
the brain, could stimulate appropriate electrical controls so as to produce
sounds identical with those which they would have produced from a living throat
and mouth. The sensory equipment of this trunkless brain was a blend of the
natural and the artificial. The optic nerves were induced to grow out along two
flexible probosces, five feet long, each of which bore a huge eye at the end.
But by a very ingenious alteration of the structure of the eye, the natural
lens could be moved aside at will, so that the retina could be applied to any
of a great diversity of optical instruments. The ears also could be projected
upon stalks, and were so arranged that the actual nerve endings could be
brought into contact with artificial resonators of various kinds, or could
listen directly to the microscopic rhythms of the most minute organisms. Scent
and taste were developed as a chemical sense, which could distinguish almost
all compounds and elements by their flavour. Pressure, warmth and cold were
detected only by the fingers, but there with great subtlety. Sensory pain was
to have been eliminated from the organism altogether; but this end was not
achieved.</p>
<p>The creature was successfully launched upon life, and was actually kept
alive for four years. But though at first all went well, in his second year the
unfortunate child, if such he may be called, began to suffer severe pain, and
to show symptoms of mental derangement. In spite of all that his devoted
foster-parents could do, he gradually sank into insanity and died. He had
succumbed to his own brain weight and to certain failures in the chemical
regulation of his blood.</p>
<p>We may overlook the next four hundred years, during which sundry vain
attempts were made to repeat the great experiment more successfully. Let us
pass on to the first true individual of the fourth human species. He was
produced in the same artificial manner as his forerunners, and was designed
upon the same general plan. His mechanical and chemical machinery, however, was
far more efficient; and his makers expected that, owing to careful adjustments
of the mechanisms of growth and decay, he would prove to be immortal. His
general plan, also, was changed in one important respect. His makers built a
large circular "brain-turret" which they divided with many partitions,
radiating from a central space, and covered everywhere with pigeon-holes. By a
technique which took centuries to develop, they induced the cells of the
growing embryonic brain to spread outwards, not as normal hemispheres of
convolutions, but into the pigeon-holes which had been prepared for them. Thus
the artificial "cranium" had to be a roomy turret of ferro-concrete some forty
feet in diameter. A door and a passage led from the outer world into the centre
of the turret, and thence other passages radiated between tiers of little
cupboards. Innumerable tubes of glass, metal and a kind of vulcanite conveyed
blood and chemicals over the whole system. Electric radiators preserved an even
warmth in every cupboard, and throughout the innumerable carefully protected
channels of the nerve-fibres. Thermometers, dials, pressure gauges, indicators
of all sorts, informed the attendants of every physical change in this strange
half-natural, half-artificial system, this preposterous factory of mind.</p>
<p>Eight years after its inception the organism had filled its brain room, and
attained the mentality of a new-born infant. His advance to maturity seemed to
his foster-parents dishearteningly slow. Not till almost at the end of his
fifth decade could he be said to have reached the mental standard of a bright
adolescent. But there was no real reason for disappointment. Within another
decade this pioneer of the Fourth Men had learned all that the Third Men could
teach him, and had also seen that a great part of their wisdom was folly. In
manual dexterity he could already vie with the best; but though manipulation
afforded him intense delight, he used his hands almost wholly in service of his
tireless curiosity. In fact, it was evident that curiosity was his main
characteristic. He was a huge bump of curiosity equipped with most cunning
hands. A department of state had been created to look after his nurture and
education. An army of learned persons was kept in readiness to answer his
impatient questions and assist him in his own scientific experiments. Now that
he had attained maturity these unfortunate pundits found themselves hopelessly
outclassed, and reduced to mere clerks, bottle-washers and errand-boys.
Hundreds of his servants were for ever scurrying into every corner of the
planet to seek information and specimens; and the significance of their errands
was by now often quite beyond the range of their own intelligence. They were
careful, however, not to let their ignorance appear to the public. On the
contrary, they succeeded in gaining much prestige from the mere mysteriousness
of their errands.</p>
<p>The great brain was wholly lacking in all normal instinctive responses, save
curiosity and constructiveness. Instinctive fear he knew not, though of course
he was capable of cold caution in any circumstances which threatened to damage
him and hinder his passionate research. Anger he knew not, but only an
adamantine firmness in the face of opposition. Normal hunger and thirst he knew
not, but only an experience of faintness when his blood was not properly
supplied with nutriment. Sex was wholly absent from his mentality. Instinctive
tenderness and instinctive group-feeling were not possible to him, for he was
without the bowels of mercy. The heroic devotion of his most intimate servants
called forth no gratitude, but only cold approval.</p>
<p>At first he interested himself not at all in the affairs of the society
which maintained him, served his every whim, and adored him. But in time he
began to take pleasure in suggesting brilliant solutions of all the current
problems of social organization. His advice was increasingly sought and
accepted. He became autocrat of the state. His own intelligence and complete
detachment combined with the people's superstitious reverence to establish him
far more securely than any ordinary tyrant. He cared nothing for the petty
troubles of his people, but he was determined to be served by a harmonious,
healthy and potent race. And as relaxation from the more serious excitement of
research in physics and astronomy, the study of human nature was not without
attractions. It may seem strange that one so completely devoid of human
sympathy could have the tact to govern a race of the emotional Third Men. But
he had built up for himself a very accurate behaviouristic psychology; and like
the skilful master of animals, he knew unerringly how much could be expected of
his people, even though their emotions were almost wholly foreign to him. Thus,
for instance, while he thoroughly despised their admiration of animals and
plants, and their religion of life, he soon learned not to seem hostile to
these obsessions, but rather to use them for his own ends. He himself was
interested in animals only as material for experiments. In this respect his
people readily helped him, partly because he assured them that his goal was the
further improvement of all types, partly because they were fascinated by his
complete disregard, in his experimentation, of the common technique for
preventing pain. The orgy of vicarious suffering awakened in his people the
long-suppressed lust in cruelty which, in spite of their intuitive insight into
animal nature, was so strong a factor in the third human species.</p>
<p>Little by little the great brain probed the material universe and the
universe of mentality. He mastered the principles of biological evolution, and
constructed for his own delight a detailed history of life on earth. He
learned, by marvellous archaeological technique, the story of all the earlier
human peoples, and of the Martian episode, matters which had remained hidden
from the Third Men. He discovered the principles of relativity and the quantum
theory, the nature of the atom as a complex system of wave trains. He measured
the cosmos; and with his delicate instruments he counted the planetary systems
in many of the remote universes. He casually solved, to his own satisfaction at
least, the ancient problems of good and evil, of mind and its object, of the
one and the many, and of truth and error. He created many new departments of
state for the purpose of recording his discoveries in an artificial language
which he devised for the purpose. Each department consisted of many colleges of
carefully bred and educated specialists who could understand the subject of
their own department to some extent. But the co-ordination of all, and true
insight into each, lay with the great brain alone.</p>
<p><b>2. THE TRAGEDY OF THE FOURTH MEN</b></p>
<p>When some three thousand years had passed since his beginning, the unique
individual determined to create others of his kind. Not that he suffered from
loneliness. Not that he yearned for love, or even for intellectual
companionship. But solely for the undertaking of more profound research, he
needed the co-operation of beings of his own mental stature. He therefore
designed, and had built in various regions of the planet, turrets and factories
like his own, though greatly improved. Into each he sent, by his servants, a
cell of his own vestigial body, and directed how it should be cultivated so as
to produce a new individual. At the same time he caused far-reaching operations
to be performed upon himself, so that he should be remade upon a more ample
plan. Of the new capacities which he inculcated in himself and his progeny the
most important was direct sensitivity to radiation. This was achieved by
incorporating in each brain tissue a specially bred strain of Martian
parasites. These henceforth were to live in the great brain as integral members
of each one of its cells. Each brain was also equipped with a powerful wireless
transmitting apparatus. Thus should the widely scattered sessile population
maintain direct "telepathic" contact with one another.</p>
<p>The undertaking was successfully accomplished. Some ten thousand of these
new individuals, each specialized for his particular locality and office, now
constituted the Fourth Men. On the highest mountains were super-astronomers
with vast observatories, whose instruments were partly artificial, partly
natural excrescences of their own brains. In the very entrails of the planet
others, specially adapted to heat, studied the subterranean forces, and were
kept in "telepathic" union with the astronomers. In the tropics, in the Arctic,
in the forests, the deserts, and on the ocean floor, the Fourth Men indulged
their immense curiosity; and in the homeland, around the father of the race, a
group of great buildings housed a hundred individuals. In the service of this
world-wide population, those races of Third Men which had originally
co-operated to produce the new human species, tilled the land, tended the
cattle, manufactured the immense material requisites of the new civilization,
and satisfied their spirits with an ever more stereotyped ritual of their
ancient vital art. This degradation of the whole race to a menial position had
occurred slowly, imperceptibly. But the result was none the less irksome.
Occasionally there were sparks of rebellion, but they always failed to kindle
serious trouble; for the prestige and persuasiveness of the Fourth Men were
irresistible.</p>
<p>At length, however, a crisis occurred. For some three thousand years the
Fourth Men had pursued their research with constant success, but latterly
progress had been slow. It was becoming increasingly difficult to devise new
lines of research. True, there was still much detail to be filled in, even in
their knowledge of their own planet, and very much in their knowledge of the
stars. But there was no prospect of opening up entirely new fields which might
throw some light on the essential nature of things. Indeed, it began to dawn on
them that they had scarcely plumbed a surface ripple of the ocean of mystery.
Their knowledge seemed to them perfectly systematic, yet wholly enigmatic. They
had a growing sense that though in a manner they knew almost everything, they
really knew nothing.</p>
<p>The normal mind, when it experiences intellectual frustration, can seek
recreation in companionship, or physical exercise, or art. But for the Fourth
Men there was no such escape. These activities were impossible and meaningless
to them. The Great Brains were whole-heartedly interested in the objective
world, but solely as a vast stimulus to intellection, never for its own sake.
They admired only the intellective process itself and the interpretative
formulae and principles which it devised. They cared no more for men and women
than for material in a test-tube, no more for one another than for mechanical
calculators. Nay, of each one of them it might almost be said that he cared
even for himself solely as an instrument of knowing. Many of the species had
actually sacrificed their sanity, even in some cases their lives, to the
obsessive lust of intellection.</p>
<p>As the sense of frustration became more and more oppressive, the Fourth Men
suffered more and more from the one-sidedness of their nature. Though so
completely dispassionate while their intellectual life proceeded smoothly, now
that it was thwarted they began to be confused by foolish whims and cravings
which they disguised from themselves under a cloak of excuses. Sessile and
incapable of affection, they continually witnessed the free movement, the group
life, the love-making of their menials. Such activities became an offence to
them, and filled them with a cold jealousy, which it was altogether beneath
their dignity to notice. The affairs of the serf-population began to be
conducted by their masters with less than the accustomed justice. Serious
grievances arose.</p>
<p>The climax occurred in connexion with a great revival of research, which, it
was said, would break down the impalpable barriers and set knowledge in
progress again. The Great Brains were to be multiplied a thousandfold, and the
resources of the whole planet were to be devoted far more strictly than before
to the crusade of intellection. The menial Third Men would therefore have to
put up with more work and less pleasure. Formerly they would willingly have
accepted this fate for the glory of serving the super-human brains. But the
days of their blind devotion was past. It was murmured among them that the
great experiment of their forefathers had proved a great disaster, and that the
Fourth Men, the Great Brains, in spite of their devilish cunning, were mere
abortions.</p>
<p>Matters came to a head when the tyrants announced that all useless animals
must be slaughtered, since their upkeep was too great an economic burden upon
the world-community. The vital art, moreover, was to be practised in future
only by the Great Brains themselves. This announcement threw the Third Men into
violent excitement, and divided them into two parties. Many of those whose
lives were spent in direct service of the Great Brains favoured implicit
obedience, though even these were deeply distressed. The majority, on the other
hand, absolutely refused to permit the impious slaughter, or even to surrender
their privileges as vital artists. For, they said, to kill off the fauna of the
planet would be to violate the fair form of the universe by blotting out many
of its most beautiful features. It would be an outrage to the Life-God, and he
would surely avenge it. They therefore urged that the time was come for all
true human beings to stand together and depose the tyrants. And this, they
pointed out, could easily be done. It was only necessary to cut a few electric
cables, connecting the Great Brains with the subterranean generating stations.
The electric pumps would then cease to supply the brain-turrets with aerated
blood. Or, in the few cases in which the Great Brains were so located that they
could control their own source of power in wind or water, it was necessary
merely to refrain from transporting food to their digestion-laboratories.</p>
<p>The personal attendants of the Great Brains shrank from such action; for
their whole lives had been devoted, proudly and even in a manner lovingly, to
service of the revered beings. But the agriculturists determined to withhold
supplies. The Great Brains, therefore, armed their servitors with a diversity
of ingenious weapons. Immense destruction was done; but since the rebels were
decimated, there were not enough hands to work the fields. Some of the Great
Brains, and many of their servants, actually died of starvation. And as
hardship increased, the servants themselves began to drift over to the rebels.
It now seemed certain to the Third Men that the Great Brains would very soon be
impotent, and the planet once more under the control of natural beings. But the
tyrants were not to be so easily defeated. Already for some centuries they had
been secretly experimenting with a means of gaining a far more thorough
dominion over the natural species. At the eleventh hour they succeeded.</p>
<p>In this undertaking they had been favoured by the results which a section of
the natural species itself had produced long ago in the effort to breed
specialized communicants to keep in touch with the unseen world. That sect, or
theocratic nation, which had striven for many centuries toward this goal, had
finally attained what they regarded as success. There came into existence an
hereditary caste of communicants. Now, though these beings were subject to
mediumistic trances in which they apparently conversed with denizens of the
other world and received instructions about the ordering of matters
terrestrial, they were in fact merely abnormally suggestible. Trained from
childhood in the lore of the unseen world, their minds, during the trance, were
amazingly fertile in developing fantasies based on that lore. Left to
themselves, they were merely folk who were abnormally lacking in initiative and
intelligence. Indeed, so na&iuml;ve were they, and so sluggish, that they were
mentally more like cattle than human beings. Yet under the influence of
suggestion they became both intelligent and vigorous. Their intelligence,
however, operating strictly in service of the suggestion, was wholly incapable
of criticizing the suggestion itself.</p>
<p>There is no need to revert to the downfall of this theocratic society,
beyond saying that, since both private and public affairs were regulated by
reference to the sayings of the communicants, inevitably the state fell into
chaos. The other community of the Third Men, that which was engaged upon
breeding the Great Brains, gradually dominated the whole planet. The
mediumistic stock, however, remained in existence, and was treated with a
half-contemptuous reverence. The mediums were still generally regarded as in
some manner specially gifted with the divine spirit, but they were now thought
to be too holy for their sayings to have any relation to mundane affairs.</p>
<p>It was by means of this mediumistic stock that the Great Brains had intended
to consolidate their position. Their earlier efforts may be passed over. But in
the end they produced a race of living and even intelligent machines whose will
they could control absolutely, even at a great distance. For the new variety of
Third Men was "telepathically" united with its masters. Martian units had been
incorporated in its nervous system.</p>
<p>At the last moment the Great Brains were able to put into the field an army
of these perfect slaves, which they equipped with the most efficient lethal
weapons. The remnant of original servants discovered too late that they had
been helping to produce their supplanters. They joined the rebels, only to
share in the general destruction. In a few months all the Third Men, save the
new docile variety, were destroyed; except for a few specimens which were
preserved in cages for experimental purposes. And in a few years every type of
animal that was not known to be directly or indirectly necessary to human life
had been exterminated. None were preserved even as specimens, for the Great
Brains had already studied them through and through.</p>
<p>But though the Great Brains were now absolute possessors of the Earth, they
were after all no nearer their goal than before. The actual struggle with the
natural species had provided them with an aim; but now that the struggle was
over, they began to be obsessed once more with their intellectual failure. With
painful clarity they realized that, in spite of their vast weight of neural
tissue, in spite of their immense knowledge and cunning, they were practically
no nearer the ultimate truth than their predecessors had been. Both were
infinitely far from it.</p>
<p>For the Fourth Men, the Great Brains, there was no possible life but the
life of intellect; and the life of intellect had become barren. Evidently
something more than mere bulk of brain was needed for the solving of the deeper
intellectual problems. They must, therefore, somehow create a new
brain-quality, or organic formation of brain, capable of a mode of vision or
insight impossible in their present state. They must learn somehow to remake
their own brain-tissues upon a new plan. With this aim, and partly through
unwitting jealousy of the natural and more balanced species which had created
them, they began to use their captive specimens of that species for a great new
enterprise of research into the nature of human brain-tissue. It was hoped thus
to find some hint of the direction in which the new evolutionary leap should
take place. The unfortunate specimens were therefore submitted to a thousand
ingenious physiological and psychological tortures. Some were kept alive with
their brains spread out permanently on a laboratory table, for microscopic
observation during their diverse psychological reactions. Others were put into
fantastic states of mental abnormality. Others were maintained in perfect
health of body and mind, only to be felled at last by some ingeniously
contrived tragic experience. New types were produced which, it was hoped, might
show evidence of emergence into a qualitatively higher mode of mentality; but
in fact they succeeded only in ranging through the whole gamut of insanity.</p>
<p>The research continued for some thousands of years, but gradually slackened,
so utterly barren did it prove to be. As this frustration became more and more
evident, a change began to come over the minds of the Fourth Men.</p>
<p>They knew, of course, that the natural species valued many things and
activities which they themselves did not appreciate at all. Hitherto this had
seemed a symptom merely of the low mental development of the natural species.
But the behaviour of the unfortunate specimens upon whom they had been
experimenting had gradually given the Fourth Men a greater insight into the
likings and admirations of the natural species, so that they had learned to
distinguish between those desires which were fundamental and those merely
accidental cravings which clear thinking would have dismissed. In fact, they
came to see that certain activities and certain objects were appreciated by
these beings with the same clear-sighted conviction as they themselves
appreciated knowledge. For instance, the natural human beings valued one
another, and were sometimes capable of sacrificing themselves for the sake of
others. They also valued love itself. And again they valued very seriously
their artistic activities; and the activities of their bodies and of animal
bodies appeared to them to have intrinsic excellence.</p>
<p>Little by little the Fourth Men began to realize that what was wrong with
themselves was not merely their intellectual limitation, but, far more
seriously, the limitation of their insight into values. And this weakness, they
saw, was the result, not of paucity of intellective brain, but of paucity of
body and lower brain tissues. This defect they could not remedy. It was
obviously impossible to remake themselves so radically that they should become
of a more normal type. Should they concentrate their efforts upon the
production of new individuals more harmonious than themselves? Such a work, it
might be supposed, would have seemed unattractive to them. But no. They argued
thus: "It is our nature to care most for knowing. Full knowledge is to be
attained only by minds both more penetrating and more broadly based than ours.
Let us, therefore, waste no more time in seeking to achieve the goal in
ourselves. Let us seek rather to produce a kind of being, free from our
limitations, in whom we may attain the goal of perfect knowledge vicariously.
The producing of such a being will exercise all our powers, and will afford the
highest kind of fulfillment possible to us. To refrain from this work would be
irrational."</p>
<p>Thus it came about that the artificial Fourth Men began to work in a new
spirit upon the surviving specimens of the Third Men to produce their own
supplanters.</p>
<p><b>3. THE FIFTH MEN</b></p>
<p>The plan of the proposed new human being was worked out in great detail
before any attempt was made to produce an actual individual. Essentially he was
to be a normal human organism, with all the bodily functions of the natural
type; but he was to be perfected through and through. Care must be taken to
give him the greatest possible bulk of brain compatible with such a general
plan, but no more. Very carefully his creators calculated the dimensions and
internal proportions which their creature must have. His brain could not be
nearly as large as their own, since he would have to carry it about with him,
and maintain it with his own physiological machinery. On the other hand, if it
was to be at all larger than the natural brain, the rest of the organism must
be proportionately sturdy. Like the Second Men, the new species must be
titanic. Indeed, it must be such as to dwarf even those natural giants. The
body, however, must not be so huge as to be seriously hampered by its own
weight, and by the necessity of having bones so massive as to be
unmanageable.</p>
<p>In working out the general proportions of the new man, his makers took into
account the possibility of devising more efficient bone and muscle. After some
centuries of patient experiment they did actually invent a means of inducing in
germ cells a tendency toward far stronger bone-tissues and far more powerful
muscle. At the same time they devised nerve-tissues more highly specialized for
their particular functions. And in the new brain, so minute compared with their
own, smallness was to be compensated for by efficiency of design, both in the
individual cells and in their organization.</p>
<p>Further, it was found possible to economize somewhat in bulk and vital
energy by improvements in the digestive system. Certain new models of
micro-organisms were produced, which, living symbiotically in the human gut,
should render the whole process of digestion easier, more rapid, and less
erratic.</p>
<p>Special attention was given to the system of self-repair in all tissues,
especially in those which had hitherto been the earliest to wear out. And at
the same time the mechanism regulating growth and general senescence was so
designed that the new man should reach maturity at the age of two hundred
years, and should remain in full vigour, for at least three thousand years,
when, with the first serious symptom of decay, his heart should suddenly cease
functioning. There had been some dispute whether the new being should be
endowed with perennial life, like his makers. But in the end it had been
decided that, since he was intended only as a transitional type, it would be
safer to allow him only a finite, though a prolonged, lifetime. There must be
no possibility that he should be tempted to regard himself as life's final
expression.</p>
<p>In sensory equipment, the new man was to have all the advantages of the
Second and Third Men, and, in addition a still wider range and finer
discrimination in every sense organ. More important was the incorporation of
Martian units in the new model of germ cell. As the organism developed, these
should propagate themselves and congregate in the cells of the brain, so that
every brain area might be sensitive to ethereal vibrations, and the whole might
emit a strong system of radiation. But care was taken that this "telepathic"
faculty of the new species should remain subordinate. There must be no danger
that the individual should become a mere resonator of the herd.</p>
<p>Long-drawn-out chemical research enabled the Fourth Men to design also
far-reaching improvements in the secretions of the new man, so that he should
maintain both a perfect physiological equilibrium and a well-balanced
temperament. For they were determined that though he should experience all the
range of emotional life, his passions should not run into disastrous excess;
nor should he be prone to some one emotion in season and out of season. It was
necessary also to revise in great detail the whole system of natural reflexes,
abolishing some, modifying others, and again strengthening others. All the more
complex, "instinctive" responses, which had persisted in man since the days of
Pithecanthropus Erectus, had also to be meticulously revised, both in respect
of the form of activity and the objects upon which they should be instinctively
directed. Anger, fear, curiosity, humour, tenderness, egoism, sexual passion,
and sociality must all be possible, but never uncontrollable. In fact, as with
the Second Men, but more emphatically, the new type was to have an innate
aptitude for, and inclination toward, all those higher activities and objects
which, in the First Men, were only achieved after laborious discipline. Thus,
while the design included self-regard, it also involved a disposition to prize
the self chiefly as a social and intellectual being, rather than as a primeval
savage. And while it included strong sociality, the group upon which
instinctive interest was to be primarily directed was to be nothing less than
the organized community of all minds. And again, while it included vigorous
primitive sexuality and parenthood, it provided also those innate
"sublimations" which had occurred in the second species; for instance, the
native aptitude for altruistic love of individual spirits of every kind, and
for art and religion. Only by a miracle of pure intellectual skill could the
cold-natured Great Brains, who were themselves doomed never to have actual
experience of such activities, contrive, merely by study of the Third Men, to
see their importance, and to design an organism splendidly capable of them. It
was much as though a blind race, after studying physics, should invent organs
of sight.</p>
<p>It was recognized, of course, that in a race in which the average life span
should be counted in thousands of years, procreation must be very rare. Yet it
was also recognized that, for full development of mind, not only sexual
intercourse but parenthood was necessary in both sexes. This difficulty was
overcome partly by designing a very prolonged infancy and childhood; which,
necessary in themselves for the proper mental and physical growth of these
complicated organisms, provided also a longer exercise of parenthood for the
mature. At the same time the actual process of childbirth was designed to be as
easy as among the Third Men. And it was expected that with its greatly improved
physiological organization the infant would not need that anxious and absorbing
care which had so seriously hobbled most mothers among the earlier races.</p>
<p>The mere sketching out of these preliminary specifications of an improved
human being involved many centuries of research and calculation which taxed
even the ingenuity of the Great Brains. Then followed a lengthy period of
tentative experiment in the actual production of such a type. For some
thousands of years little was done but to show that many promising lines of
attack were after all barren. And several times during this period the whole
work was held up by disagreements among the Great Brains themselves as to the
policy to be adopted. Once, indeed, they took to violence, one party attacking
the other with chemicals, microbes, and armies of human automata.</p>
<p>In short it was only after many failures, and after many barren epochs
during which, for a variety of reasons, the enterprise was neglected, that the
Fourth Men did at length fashion two individuals almost precisely of the type
they had originally designed. These were produced from a single fertilized
ovum, in laboratory conditions. Identical twins, but of opposite sexes, they
became the Adam and Eve of a new and glorious human species, the Fifth Men.</p>
<p>It may fittingly be said of the Fifth Men that they were the first to attain
true human proportions of body and mind. On the average they were more than
twice as tall as the First Men, and much taller than the Second Men. Their
lower limbs had therefore to be extremely massive compared with the torso which
they had to support. Thus, upon the ample pedestal of their feet, they stood
like columns of masonry. Yet though their proportions were in a manner
elephantine, there was a remarkable precision and even delicacy in the volumes
that composed them. Their great arms and shoulders, dwarfed somewhat by their
still mightier legs, were instruments not only of power but also of fine
adjustment. Their hands also were fashioned both for power and for minute
control; for, while the thumb and forefinger constituted a formidable vice, the
delicate sixth finger had been induced to divide its tip into two Lilliputian
fingers and a corresponding thumb. The contours of the limbs were sharply
visible, for the body bore no hair, save for a close, thick skull-cap which, in
the original stock, was of ruddy brown. The well-marked eyebrows, when drawn
down, shaded the sensitive eyes from the sun. Elsewhere there was no need of
hair, for the brown skin had been so ingeniously contrived that it maintained
an even temperature alike in tropical and subarctic climates, with no aid
either from hair or clothes. Compared with the great body, the head was not
large, though the brain capacity was twice that of the Second Men. In the
original pair of individuals the immense eyes were of a deep violet, the
features strongly moulded and mobile. These facial characters had not been
specially designed, for they seemed unimportant to the Fourth Men; but the play
of biological forces resulted in a face not unlike that of the Second Men,
though with an added and indescribable expression which no human face had
hitherto attained.</p>
<p>How from this pair of individuals the new population gradually arose; how at
first it was earnestly fostered by its creators; how it subsequently asserted
its independence and took control of its own destiny; how the Great Brains
failed piteously to understand and sympathize with the mentality of their
creatures, and tried to tyrannize over them; how for a while the planet was
divided into two mutually intolerant communities, and was at last drenched with
man's blood, until the human automata were exterminated, the Great Brains
starved or blown to pieces, and the Fifth Men themselves decimated; how, as a
result of these events, a dense fog of barbarism settled once more upon the
planet, so that the Fifth Men, like so many other races, had after all to start
rebuilding civilization and culture from its very foundations; how all these
things befell we must not in detail observe.</p>
<p><b>4. THE CULTURE OF THE FIFTH MEN</b></p>
<p>It is not possible to recount the stages by which the Fifth Men advanced
toward their greatest civilization and culture; for it is that fully developed
culture itself which concerns us. And even of their highest achievement, which
persisted for so many millions of years, I can say but little, not merely
because I must hasten to the end of my story, but also because so much of that
achievement lies wholly beyond the comprehension of those for whom this book is
intended. For I have at last reached that period in the history of man when he
first began to reorganize his whole mentality to cope with matters whose very
existence had been hitherto almost completely hidden from him. The old aims
persist, and are progressively realized as never before; but also they become
increasingly subordinate to the requirements of new aims which are more and
more insistently forced upon him by his deepening experience. Just as the
interests and ideals of the First Men lie beyond the grasp of their ape
contemporaries, so the interests and ideals of the Fifth Men in their full
development lie beyond the grasp of the First Men. On the other hand, just as,
in the life of primitive man, there is much which would be meaningful even to
the ape, so in the life of the Fifth Men much remains which is meaningful even
to the First Men.</p>
<p>Conceive a world-society developed materially far beyond the wildest dreams
of America. Unlimited power, derived partly from the artificial disintegration
of atoms, partly from the actual annihilation of matter through the union of
electrons and protons to form radiation, completely abolished the whole
grotesque burden of drudgery which hitherto had seemed the inescapable price of
civilization, nay of life itself. The vast economic routine of the
world-community was carried on by the mere touching of appropriate buttons.
Transport, mining, manufacture, and even agriculture were performed in this
manner. And indeed in most cases the systematic co-ordination of these
activities was itself the work of self-regulating machinery. Thus, not only was
there no longer need for any human beings to spend their lives in unskilled
monotonous labour, but further, much that earlier races would have regarded as
highly skilled though stereotyped work, was now carried on by machinery. Only
the pioneering of industry, the endless exhilarating research, invention,
design and reorganization, which is incurred by an ever-changing society, still
engaged the minds of men and women. And though this work was of course immense,
it could not occupy the whole attention of a great world-community. Thus very
much of the energy of the race was free to occupy itself with other no less
difficult and exacting matters, or to seek recreation in its many admirable
sports and arts. Materially every individual was a multi-millionaire, in that
he had at his beck and call a great diversity of powerful mechanisms; but also
he was a penniless friar, for he had no vestige of economic control over any
other human being. He could fly through the upper air to the ends of the earth
in an hour, or hang idle among the clouds all day long. His flying machine was
no cumbersome aeroplane, but either a wingless aerial boat, or a mere suit of
overalls in which he could disport himself with the freedom of a bird. Not only
in the air, but in the sea also, he was free. He could stroll about the ocean
bed, or gambol with the deep-sea fishes. And for habitation he could make his
home, as he willed, either in a shack in the wilderness or in one of the great
pylons which dwarfed the architecture even of the American age. He could
possess this huge palace in loneliness and fill it with his possessions, to be
automatically cared for without human service; or he could join with others and
create a hive of social life. All these amenities he took for granted as the
savage takes for granted the air which he breathes. And because they were as
universally available as air, no one craved them in excess, and no one grudged
another the use of them.</p>
<p>Yet the population of the earth was now very numerous. Some ten thousand
million persons had their homes in the snow-capped pylons which covered the
continents with an open forest of architecture. Between these great obelisks
lay corn-land, park, and wilderness. For there were very many areas of
hill-country and forest which were preserved as playgrounds. And indeed one
whole continent, stretching from the Tropics to the Arctic, was kept as nearly
as possible in its natural state. This region was chosen mainly for its
mountains; for since most of the Alpine tracts had by now been worn into
insignificance by water and frost, mountains were much prized. Into this Wild
Continent individuals of all ages repaired to spend many years at a time in
living the life of primitive man without any aid whatever from civilization.
For it was recognized that a highly sophisticated race, devoted almost wholly
to art and science, must take special measures to preserve its contact with the
primitive. Thus in the Wild Continent was to be found at any time a sparse
population of "savages," armed with flint and bone, or more rarely with iron,
which they or their friends had wrested from the earth. These voluntary
primitives were intent chiefly upon hunting and simple agriculture. Their
scanty leisure was devoted to art, and meditation, and to savouring fully all
the primeval human values. Indeed it was a hard life and a dangerous that these
intellectuals periodically imposed on themselves. And though of course they had
zest in it, they often dreaded its hardship and the uncertainty that they would
ever return from it. For the danger was very real. The Fifth Men had
compensated for the Fourth Men's foolish destruction of the animals by creating
a whole system of new types, which they set at large in the Wild Continent; and
some of these creatures were extremely formidable carnivora, which man himself,
armed only with primitive weapons, had very good reason to fear. In the Wild
Continent there was inevitably a high death-rate. Many promising lives were
tragically cut short. But it was recognized that from the point of view of the
race this sacrifice was worth while, for the spiritual effects of the
institution of periodic savagery were very real. Beings whose natural span was
three thousand years, given over almost wholly to civilized pursuits, were
greatly invigorated and enlightened by an occasional decade in the wild.</p>
<p>The culture of the Fifth Men was influenced in many respects by their
"telepathic" communication with one another. The obvious advantages of this
capacity were now secured without its dangers. Each individual could isolate
himself at will from the radiation of his fellows, either wholly or in respect
of particular elements of his mental process; and thus he was in no danger of
losing his individuality. But, on the other hand, he was immeasurably more able
to participate in the experience of others than were beings for whom the only
possible communication was symbolic. The result was that, though conflict of
wills was still possible, it was far more easily resolved by mutual
understanding than had ever been the case in earlier species. Thus there were
no lasting and no radical conflicts, either of thought or desire. It was
universally recognized that every discrepancy of opinion and of aim could be
abolished by telepathic discussion. Sometimes the process would be easy and
rapid; sometimes it could not be achieved without a patient and detailed
"laying of mind to mind," so as to bring to light the point where the
difference originated.</p>
<p>One result of the general "telepathic" facility of the species was that
speech was no longer necessary. It was still preserved and prized, but only as
a medium of art, not as a means of communication. Thinking, of course, was
still carried on largely by means of words; but in communication there was no
more need actually to speak the words than in thinking in private. Written
language remained essential for the recording and storing of thought. Both
language and the written expression of it had become far more complex and
accurate than they had ever been, more faithful instruments for the expression
and creation of thought and emotion.</p>
<p>"Telepathy" combined with longevity and the extremely subtle brain-structure
of the species to afford each individual an immense number of intimate
friendships, and some slight acquaintance actually with the whole race. This, I
fear, must seem incredible to my readers, unless they can be persuaded to
regard it as a symptom of the high mental development of the species. However
that may be, it is a fact that each person was aware of every other, at least
as a face, or a name, or the holder of a certain office. It is impossible to
exaggerate the effects of this facility of personal intercourse. It meant that
the species constituted at any moment, if not strictly a community of friends,
at least a vast club or college. Further, since each individual saw his own
mind reflected, as it were, in very many other minds, and since there was great
variety of psychological types, the upshot in each individual was a very
accurate self-consciousness.</p>
<p>In the Martians, "telepathic" intercourse had resulted in a true group mind,
a single psychical process embodied in the electro-magnetic radiation of the
whole race; but this group-mind was inferior in calibre to the individual
minds. All that was distinctive of an individual at his best failed to
contribute to the group-mind. But in the fifth human species "telepathy" was
only a means of intercourse between individuals; there was no true group-mind.
On the other hand, "telepathic" intercourse occurred even on the highest planes
of experience. It was by "telepathic" intercourse in respect of art, science,
philosophy, and the appreciation of personalities, that the public mind, or
rather the public culture, of the Fifth Men had being. With the Martians,
"telepathic" union took place chiefly by elimination of the differences between
individuals; with the Fifth Men "telepathic" communication was, as it were, a
kind of spiritual multiplication of mental diversity, by which each mind was
enriched with the wealth of ten thousand million. Consequently each individual
was, in a very real sense, the cultured mind of the species; but there were as
many such minds as there were individuals. There was no additional racial mind
over and above the minds of the individuals. Each individual himself was a
conscious centre which participated in, and contributed to, the experience of
all other centres.</p>
<p>This state of affairs would not have been possible had not the world
community been able to direct so much of its interest and energy into the
higher mental activities. The whole structure of society was fashioned in
relation to its best culture. It is almost impossible to give even an inkling
of the nature and aims of this culture, and to make it believable that a huge
population should have spent scores of millions of years not wholly, not even
chiefly, on industrial advancement, but almost entirely on art, science and
philosophy, without ever repeating itself or falling into ennui. I can only
point out that, the higher a mind's development, the more it discovers in the
universe to occupy it.</p>
<p>Needless to say, the Fifth Men had early mastered all those paradoxes of
physical science which had so perplexed the First Men. Needless to say, they
had a very complete knowledge of the geography of the cosmos and of the atom.
But again and again the very foundations of their science were shattered by
some new discovery, so that they had patiently to reconstruct the whole upon an
entirely new plan. At length, however, with the clear formulation of the
principles of psycho-physics, in which the older psychology and the older
physics were held, so to speak, in chemical combination, they seemed to have
built upon the rock. In this science, the fundamental concepts of psychology
were given a physical meaning, and the fundamental concepts of physics were
stated in a psychological manner. Further, the most fundamental relations of
the physical universe were found to be of the same nature as the fundamental
principles of art. But, and herein lay mystery and horror even for the Fifth
Men, there was no shred of evidence that this aesthetically admirable cosmos
was the work of a conscious artist, nor yet that any mind would ever develop so
greatly as to be able to appreciate the Whole in all its detail and unity.</p>
<p>Since art seemed to the Fifth Men to be in some sense basic to the cosmos,
they were naturally very much preoccupied with artistic creation. Consequently,
all those who were not social or economic organizers, or scientific
researchers, or pure philosophers, were by profession creative artists or
handicraftsmen. That is to say, they were engaged on the production of material
objects of various kinds, whose form should be aesthetically significant to the
perceiver. In some cases the material object was a pattern of spoken words, in
others pure music, in others moving coloured shapes, in others a complex of
steel cubes and bars, in others some translation of the human figure into a
particular medium, and so on. But also the aesthetic impulse expressed itself
in the production, by hand, of innumerable common utensils, indulging sometimes
in lavish decoration, trusting at other times to the beauty of function. Every
medium of art that had ever beers employed was employed by the Fifth Men, and
innumerable new vehicles were also used. They prized on the whole more highly
those kinds of art which were not static; but involved time as well as space;
for as a race they were peculiarly fascinated by time.</p>
<p>These innumerable artists held that they were doing something of great
importance. The cosmos was to be regarded as an aesthetic unity in four
directions, and of inconceivable complexity. Human works of pure art were
thought of as instruments through which man might behold and admire some aspect
of the cosmic beauty. They were said to focus together features of the cosmos
too vast and elusive for man otherwise to apprehend their form. The work of art
was sometimes likened to a compendious mathematical formula expressive of some
immense and apparently chaotic field of facts. But in the case of art, it was
said, the unity which the artistic object elicited was one in which factors of
vital nature and of mind itself were essential members.</p>
<p>The race thus deemed itself to be engaged upon a great enterprise both of
discovery and creation in which each individual was both an originator of some
unique contribution, and an appraiser of all.</p>
<p>Now, as the years advanced in millions and in decades of millions, it began
to be noticed that the movement of world culture was in a manner spiral. There
would be an age during which the interest of the race was directed almost
wholly upon certain tracts or aspects of existence; and then, after perhaps a
hundred thousand years, these would seem to have been fully cultivated, and
would be left fallow. During the next epoch attention would be in the main
directed to other spheres, and then afterwards to yet others, and again others.
But at length a return would be made to the fields that had been deserted, and
it would be discovered that they could now miraculously bear a million-fold the
former crop. Thus, in both science and art man kept recurring again and again
to the ancient themes, to work over them once more in meticulous detail and
strike from them new truth and new beauty, such as, in the earlier epoch, he
could never have conceived. Thus it was that, though science gathered to itself
unfalteringly an ever wider and more detailed view of existence, it
periodically discovered some revolutionary general principle in terms of which
its whole content had to be given a new significance. And in art there would
appear in one age works superficially almost identical with works of another
age, yet to the discerning eye incomparably more significant. Similarly, in
respect of human personality itself, those men and women who lived at the close
of the aeon of the Fifth Men could often discover in the remote beginning of
their own race beings curiously like themselves, yet, as it were, expressed in
fewer dimensions than their own many-dimensional natures. As a map is like the
mountainous land, or the picture like the landscape, or indeed as the point and
the circle are like the sphere, so, and only so, the earlier Fifth Men
resembled the flower of the species.</p>
<p>Such statements would be in a manner true of any period of steady cultural
progress. But in the present instance they have a peculiar significance which I
must now somehow contrive to suggest.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER XII. THE LAST TERRESTRIALS</h3>
<p><b>1. THE CULT OF EVANESCENCE</b></p>
<p>The Fifth Men had not been endowed with that potential immortality which
their makers themselves possessed. And from the fact that they were mortal and
yet long-lived, their culture drew its chief brilliance and poignancy. Beings
for whom the natural span was three thousand years, and ultimately as much as
fifty thousand, were peculiarly troubled by the prospect of death, and by the
loss of those dear to them. The mere ephemeral kind of spirit, that comes into
being and then almost immediately ceases, before it has entered at all deeply
into consciousness of itself, can face its end with a courage that is half
unwitting. Even its smart in the loss of other beings with whom it has been
intimate is but a vague and dreamlike suffering. For the ephemeral spirit has
no time to grow fully awake, or fully intimate with another, before it must
lose its beloved, and itself once more fade into unconsciousness. But with the
long-lived yet not immortal Fifth Men the case was different. Gathering to
themselves experience of the cosmos, acquiring an ever more precise and vivid
insight and appreciation, they knew that very soon all this wealth of the soul
must cease to be. And in love, though they might be fully intimate not merely
with one but with very many persons, the death of one of these dear spirits
seemed an irrevocable tragedy, an utter annihilation of the most resplendent
kind of glory, an impoverishment of the cosmos for evermore.</p>
<p>In their brief primitive phase, the Fifth Men, like so many other races,
sought to console themselves by unreasoning faith in a life after death, They
conceived, for instance, that at death terrestrial beings embarked upon a
career continuous with earthly life, but far more ample, either in some remote
planetary system, or in some wholly distinct orb of space-time. But though such
theories were never disproved in the primitive era, they gradually began to
seem not merely improbable but ignoble. For it came to be recognized that the
resplendent glories of personality, even in that degree of beauty which now for
the first time was attained, were not after all the extreme of glory. It was
seen with pain, but also with exultation, that even love's demand that the
beloved should have immortal life is a betrayal of man's paramount allegiance.
And little by little it became evident that those who used great gifts, and
even genius, to establish the truth of the after life, or to seek contact with
their beloved dead, suffered from a strange blindness, and obtuseness of the
spirit. Though the love which had misled them was itself a very lovely thing,
yet they were misled. Like children, searching for lost toys, they wandered.
Like adolescents seeking to recapture delight in the things of childhood, they
shunned those more difficult admirations which are proper to the grown
mind.</p>
<p>And so it became a constant aim of the Fifth Men to school themselves to
admire chiefly even in the very crisis of bereavement, not persons, but that
great music of innumerable personal lives, which is the life of the race. And
quite early in their career they discovered an unexpected beauty in the very
fact that the individual must die. So that, when they had actually come into
possession of the means to make themselves immortal, they refrained, choosing
rather merely to increase the life-span of succeeding generations to fifty
thousand years. Such a period seemed to be demanded for the full exercise of
human capacity; but immortality, they held, would lead to spiritual
disaster.</p>
<p>Now as their science advanced they saw that there had been a time, before
the stars were formed, when there was no possible footing for minds in the
cosmos; and that there would come a time when mentality would be driven out of
existence. Earlier human species had not needed to trouble about mind's
ultimate fate; but for the long-lived Fifth Men the end, though remote, did not
seem infinitely distant. The prospect distressed them. They had schooled
themselves to live not for the individual but for the race; and now the life of
the race itself was seen to be a mere instant between the endless void of the
past and the endless void of the future. Nothing within their ken was more
worthy of admiration than the organized progressive mentality of mankind; and
the conviction that this most admired thing must soon cease, filled many of
their less ample minds with horror and indignation. But in time the Fifth Men,
like the Second Men long before them, came to suspect that even in this tragic
brevity of mind's course there was a quality of beauty, more difficult than the
familiar beauty, but also more exquisite. Even thus imprisoned in an instant,
the spirit of man might yet plumb the whole extent of space, and also the whole
past and the whole future; and so, from behind his prison bars, he might render
the universe that intelligent worship which, they felt, it demanded of him.
Better so, they said, than that he should fret himself with puny efforts to
escape. He is dignified by his very weakness, and the cosmos by its very
indifference to him.</p>
<p>For aeons they remained in this faith. And they schooled their hearts to
acquiesce in it, saying, if it is so, it is best, and somehow we must learn to
see that it is best. But what they meant by "best" was not what their
predecessors would have meant. They did not, for instance, deceive themselves
by pretending that after all they themselves actually preferred life to be
evanescent. On the contrary, they continued to long that it might be otherwise.
But having discovered, both behind the physical order and behind the desires of
minds, a fundamental principle whose essence was aesthetic, they were faithful
to the conviction that whatever was fact must somehow in the universal view be
fitting, right, beautiful, integral to the form of the cosmos. And so they
accepted as right a state of affairs which in their own hearts they still felt
grievously wrong. This conviction of the irrevocability of the past and of the
evanescence of mind induced in them a great tenderness for all beings that had
lived and ceased. Deeming themselves to be near the crest of life's
achievement, blessed also with longevity and philosophic detachment, they were
often smitten with pity for those humbler, briefer and less free spirits whose
lot had fallen in the past. Moreover, themselves extremely complex, subtle,
conscious, they conceived a generous admiration for all simple minds, for the
early men, and for the beasts. Very strongly they condemned the action of their
predecessors in destroying so many joyous and delectable creatures. Earnestly
they sought to reconstruct in imagination all those beings that blind
intellectualism had murdered. Earnestly they delved in the near and the remote
past so as to recover as much as possible of the history of life on the planet.
With meticulous love they would figure out the life stories of extinct types,
such as the brontosaurus, the hippopotamus, the chimpanzee, the Englishman, the
American, as also of the still extant amoeba. And while they could not but
relish the comicality of these remote beings, their amusement was the outgrowth
of affectionate insight into simple natures, and was but the obverse of their
recognition that the primitive is essentially tragic, because blind. And so,
while they saw that the main work of man must have regard to the future, they
felt that he owed also a duty toward the past. He must preserve it in his own
mind, if not actually in life at least in being. In the future lay glory, joy,
brilliance of the spirit. The future needed service, not pity, not piety; but
in the past lay darkness, confusion, waste, and all the cramped primitive
minds, bewildered, torturing one another in their stupidity, yet one and all in
some unique manner, beautiful.</p>
<p>The reconstruction of the past, not merely as abstract history but with the
intimacy of the novel, thus became one of the main preoccupations of the Fifth
Men. Many devoted themselves to this work, each individual specializing very
minutely in some particular episode of human or animal history, and
transmitting his work into the culture of the race. Thus increasingly the
individual felt himself to be a single flicker between the teeming gulf of the
never-more and the boundless void of the not-yet. Himself a member of a very
noble and fortunate race, his zest in existence was tempered, deepened, by a
sense of the presence, the ghostly presence, of the myriad less fortunate
beings in the past. Sometimes, and especially in epochs when the contemporary
world seemed most satisfactory and promising, this piety toward the primitive
and the past became the dominant activity of the race, giving rise to
alternating phases of rebellion against the tyrannical nature of the cosmos,
and faith that in the universal view, after all, this horror must be right. In
this latter mood it was held that the very irrevocability of the past dignified
all past existents, and dignified the cosmos, as a work of tragic art is
dignified by the irrevocability of disaster. It was this mood of acquiescence
and faith which in the end became the characteristic attitude of the Fifth Men
for many millions of years.</p>
<p>But a bewildering discovery was in store for the Fifth Men, a discovery
which was to change their whole attitude toward existence. Certain obscure
biological facts began to make them suspect, on purely empirical grounds, that
past events were not after all simply non-existent, that though no longer
existent in the temporal manner, they had eternal existence in some other
manner. The effect of this increasing suspicion about the past was that a once
harmonious race was divided for a while into two parties, those who insisted
that the formal beauty of the universe demanded the tragic evanescence of all
things, and those who determined to show that living minds could actually reach
back into past events in all their pastness.</p>
<p>The readers of this book are not in a position to realize the poignancy of
the conflict which now threatened to wreck humanity. They cannot approach it
from the point of view of a race whose culture had consisted of an age-long
schooling in admiration of an ever-vanishing cosmos. To the orthodox it seemed
that the new view was iconoclastic, impertinent, vulgar. Their opponents, on
the other hand, insisted that the matter must be decided dispassionately,
according to the evidence. They were also able to point out that this devotion
to evanescence was after all but the outcome of the conviction that the cosmos
must be supremely noble. No one, it was said, really had direct vision of
evanescence as in itself an excellence. So heartfelt was the dispute that the
orthodox party actually broke off all "telepathic" communication with the
rebels, and even went so far as to plan their destruction. There can be no
doubt that if violence had actually been used the human race would have
succumbed; for in a species of such high mental development internecine war
would have been a gross violation of its nature. It would never have been able
to live down so shameful a spiritual disaster. Fortunately, however, at the
eleventh hour, common sense prevailed. The iconoclasts were permitted to carry
on their research, and the whole race awaited the result.</p>
<p><b>2. EXPLORATION OF TIME</b></p>
<p>This first attack upon the nature of time involved an immense co-operative
work, both theoretical and practical. It was from biology that the first hint
had come that the past persisted. And it would be necessary to restate the
whole of biology and the physical sciences in terms of the new idea. On the
practical side it was necessary to undertake a great campaign of experiment,
physiological and psychological. We cannot stay to watch this work. Millions of
years passed by. Sometimes, for thousands of years at a spell, temporal
research was the main preoccupation of the race: sometimes it was thrust into
the background, or completely ignored, during epochs which were dominated by
other interests. Age after age passed, and always the effort of man in this
sphere remained barren. Then at last there was a real success.</p>
<p>A child had been selected from among those produced by an age-long breeding
enterprise, directed towards the mastery of time. From infancy this child's
brain had been very carefully controlled physiologically. Psychologically also
he had been subjected to a severe treatment, that he might be properly schooled
for his strange task. In the presence of several scientists and historians he
was put into a kind of trance, and brought out of it again, half an hour later.
He was then asked to give an account "telepathically" of his experiences during
the trance. Unfortunately he was now so shattered that his evidence was almost
unintelligible. After some months of rest he was questioned again, and was able
to describe a curious episode which turned out to be a terrifying incident in
the girlhood of his dead mother. He seemed to have seen the incident through
her eyes, and to have been aware of all her thoughts. This alone proved
nothing, for he might have received the information from some living mind. Once
more, therefore, and in spite of his entreaties, he was put into the peculiar
trance. On waking he told a rambling story of "little red people living in a
squat white tower." It was clear that he was referring to the Great Brains and
their attendants. But once more, this proved nothing; and before the account
was finished the child died.</p>
<p>Another child was chosen, but was not put to the test until late in
adolescence. After an hour of the trance, he woke and became terribly agitated,
but forced himself to describe an episode which the historians assigned to the
age of the Martian invasions. The importance of this incident lay in his
account of a certain house with a carved granite portico, situated at the head
of a waterfall in a mountain valley. He said he had found himself to be an old
woman, and that he, or she, was being hurriedly helped out of the house by the
other inmates. They watched a formless monster creep down the valley, destroy
their house, and mangle two persons who failed to get away in time. Now this
house was not at all typical of the Second Men, but must have expressed the
whim of some freakish individual. From evidence derived from the boy himself,
it proved possible to locate the valley with reference to a former mountain,
known to history. No valley survived in that spot; but deep excavations
revealed the ancient slopes, the fault that had occasioned the waterfall, and
the broken pillars.</p>
<p>This and many similar incidents confirmed the Fifth Men in their new view of
time. There followed an age in which the technique of direct inspection of the
past was gradually improved, but not without tragedy. In the early stages it
was found impossible to keep the "medium" alive for more than a few weeks after
his venture into the past. The experience seemed to set up a progressive mental
disintegration which produced first insanity, then paralysis, and, within a few
months, death. This difficulty was at last overcome. By one means and another a
type of brain was produced capable of undergoing the strain of supra-temporal
experience without fatal results. An increasingly large proportion of the
rising generation had now direct access to the past, and were engaged upon a
great restatement of history in relation to their first-hand experience; but
their excursions into the past were uncontrollable. They could not go where
they wanted to go, but only where fate flung them. Nor could they go of their
own will, but only through a very complicated technique, and with the
cooperation of experts. After a time the process was made much easier, in fact,
too easy. The unfortunate medium might slip so easily into the trance that his
days were eaten up by the past. He might suddenly fall to the ground, and lie
rapt, inert, dependent on artificial feeding, for weeks, months, even for
years. Or a dozen times in the same day he might be flung into a dozen
different epochs of history. Or, still more distressing, his experience of past
events might not keep pace with the actual rhythm of those events themselves.
Thus he might behold the events of a month, or even a lifetime, fantastically
accelerated so as to occupy a trance of no more than a day's duration. Or,
worse, he might find himself sliding backwards down the vista of the hours and
experiencing events in an order the reverse of the natural order. Even the
magnificent brains of the Fifth Men could not stand this. The result was
maniacal behaviour, followed by death. Another trouble also beset these first
experimenters. Supra-temporal experience proved to be like a dangerous and
habit-forming drug. Those who ventured into the past might become so
intoxicated that they would try to spend every moment of their natural lives in
roaming among past events. Thus gradually they would lose touch with the
present, live in absent-minded brooding, fail to react normally to their
environment, turn socially worthless, and often come actually to physical
disaster through inability to look after themselves.</p>
<p>Many more thousands of years passed before these difficulties and dangers
were overcome. At length, however, the technique of supra-temporal experience
was so perfected that every individual could at will practise it with safety,
and could, within limits, project his vision into any locality of space-time
which he desired to inspect. It was only possible, however, to see past events
through the mind of some past organism, no longer living. And in practice only
human minds, and to some extent the minds of the higher mammals, could be
entered. The explorer retained throughout his adventure his own personality and
system of memory. While experiencing the past individual's perceptions,
memories, thoughts, desires, and in fact the whole process and content of the
past mind, the explorer continued to be himself, and to react in terms of his
own character, now condemning, now sympathizing, now critically enjoying the
spectacle.</p>
<p>The task of explaining the mechanism of this new faculty occupied the
scientists and philosophers of the species for a very long period. The final
account, of course, cannot be presented save by parable; for it was found
necessary to recast many fundamental concepts in order to interpret the facts
coherently. The only hint that I can give of the explanation is in saying,
metaphorically of course, that the living brain had access to the past, not by
way of some mysterious kind of racial memory, nor by some equally impossible
journey up the stream of time, but by a partial awakening, as it were, into
eternity, and into inspection of a minute tract of space-time through some
temporal mind in the past, as though through an optical instrument. In the
early experiments the fantastic speeding, slowing and reversal of the temporal
process resulted from disorderly inspection. As a reader may either skim the
pages of a book, or read at a comfortable pace, or dwell upon one word, or
spell the sentence backwards, so, unintentionally, the novice in eternity might
read or misread the mind that was presented to him.</p>
<p>This new mode of experience, it should be noted, was the activity of living
brains, though brains of a novel kind. Hence what was to be discovered "through
the medium of eternity" was limited by the particular exploring brain's
capacity of understanding what was presented to it. And, further, though the
actual supra-temporal contact with past events occupied no time in the brain's
natural life, the assimilating of that moment of vision, the reduction of it to
normal temporal memory in the normal brain structures, took time, and had to be
done during the period of the trance. To expect the neural structure to record
the experience instantaneously would be to expect a complicated machine to
effect a complicated readjustment without a process of readjusting.</p>
<p>The access to the past had, of course, far-reaching effects upon the culture
of the Fifth Men, Not only did it give them an incomparably more accurate
knowledge of past events, and insight into the motives of historical
personages, and into large-scale cultural movements, but also it effected a
subtle change in their estimate of the importance of things. Though
intellectually they had, of course, realized both the vastness and the richness
of the past, now they realized it with an overwhelming vividness. Matters that
had been known hitherto only historically, schematically, were now available to
be lived through by intimate acquaintance. The only limit to such acquaintance
was set by the limitations of the explorer's own brain-capacity. Consequently
the remote past came to enter into a man and shape his mind in a manner in
which only the recent past, through memory, had shaped him hitherto. Even
before the new kind of experience was first acquired, the race had been, as was
said, peculiarly under the spell of the past; but now it was infinitely more
so. Hitherto the Fifth Men had been like stay-at-home folk who had read
minutely of foreign parts, but had never travelled; now they had become
travellers experienced in all the continents of human time. The presences that
had hitherto been ghostly were now presences of flesh and blood seen in broad
daylight. And so the moving instant called the present appeared no longer as
the only, and infinitesimal, real, but as the growing surface of an everlasting
tree of existence. It was now the past that seemed most real, while the future
still seemed void, and the present merely the impalpable becomingness of the
indestructible past.</p>
<p>The discovery that past events were after all persistent, and accessible,
was of course for the Fifth Men a source of deep joy; but also it caused them a
new distress. While the past was thought of as a mere gulf of nonexistence, the
inconceivably great pain, misery, baseness, that had fallen into that gulf,
could be dismissed as done with; and the will could be concentrated wholly on
preventing such horrors from occurring in the future. But now, along with past
joy, past distress was found to be everlasting. And those who, in the course of
their voyaging in the past, encountered regions of eternal agony, came back
distraught. It was easy to remind these harrowed explorers that if pain was
eternal, so also was joy. Those who had endured travel in the tragic past were
apt to dismiss such assurances with contempt, affirming that all the delights
of the whole population of time could not compensate for the agony of one
tortured individual. And anyhow, they declared, it was obvious that there had
been no preponderance of joy over pain. Indeed, save in the modern age, pain
had been overwhelmingly in excess.</p>
<p>So seriously did these convictions prey upon the minds of the Fifth Men,
that in spite of their own almost perfect social order, in which suffering had
actually to be sought out as a tonic, they fell into despair. At all times, in
all pursuits, the presence of the tragic past haunted them, poisoning their
lives, sapping their strength. Lovers were ashamed of their delight in one
another, As in the far-off days of sexual taboo, guilt crept between them, and
held their spirits apart even while their bodies were united.</p>
<p><b>3. VOYAGING IN SPACE</b></p>
<p>It was while they were struggling in the grip of this vast social
melancholy, and anxiously erasing some new vision by which to reinterpret or
transcend the agony of the past, that the Fifth Men were confronted with a most
unexpected physical crisis. It was discovered that something queer was
happening to the moon; in fact, that the orbit of the satellite was narrowing
in upon the earth in a manner contrary to all the calculations of the
scientists.</p>
<p>The Fifth Men had long ago fashioned for themselves an all-embracing and
minutely coherent system of natural sciences, every factor in which had been
put to the test a thousand times and had never been shaken. Imagine, then,
their bewilderment at this extraordinary discovery. In ages when science was
still fragmentary, a subversive discovery entailed merely a reorganization of
some one department of science; but by now, such was the coherence of
knowledge, that any minute discrepancy of fact and theory must throw man into a
state of complete intellectual vertigo.</p>
<p>The evolution of the lunar orbit had, of course, been studied from time
immemorial. Even the First Men had learned that the moon must first withdraw
from and subsequently once more approach the earth, till it should reach a
critical proximity and begin to break up into a swarm of fragments likes the
rings of Saturn. This view had been very thoroughly confirmed by the Fifth Men
themselves. The satellite should have continued to withdraw for yet many
hundreds of millions of years; but in fact it was now observed that not only
had the withdrawal ceased, but a comparatively rapid approach had begun.</p>
<p>Observations and calculations were repeated, and ingenious theoretical
explanations were suggested; but the truth remained completely hidden. It was
left to a future and more brilliant species to discover the connexion between a
planet's gravitation and its cultural development. Meanwhile, the Fifth Men
knew only that the distance between the earth and the moon was becoming smaller
with ever-increasing rapidity.</p>
<p>This discovery was a tonic to a melancholy race. Men turned from the tragic
past to the bewildering present and the uncertain future.</p>
<p>For it was evident that, if the present acceleration of approach were to be
maintained, the moon would enter the critical zone and disintegrate in less
than ten million years; and, further, that the fragments would not maintain
themselves as a ring, but would soon crash upon the earth. Heat generated by
their impact would make the surface of the earth impossible as the home of
life. A short-lived and short-sighted species might well have considered ten
million years as equivalent to eternity. Not so the Fifth Men. Thinking
primarily in terms of the race, they recognized at once that their whole social
policy must now be dominated by this future catastrophe. Some there were indeed
who at first refused to take the matter seriously, saying that there was no
reason to believe that the moon's odd behaviour would continue indefinitely.
But as the years advanced, this view became increasingly improbable. Some of
those who had spent much of their lives in exploration of the past now sought
to explore the future also, hoping to prove that human civilization would
always be discoverable on the earth in no matter how remote a future. But the
attempt to unveil the future by direct inspection failed completely. It was
surmised, erroneously, that future events, unlike past events, must be strictly
non-existent until their creation by the advancing present.</p>
<p>Clearly humanity must leave its native planet. Research was therefore
concentrated on the possibility of flight through empty space, and the
suitability of neighbouring worlds. The only alternatives were Mars and Venus.
The former was by now without water and without atmosphere. The latter had a
dense moist atmosphere; but one which lacked oxygen. The surface of Venus,
moreover, was known to be almost completely covered with a shallow ocean.
Further the planet was so hot by day that, even at the poles, man in his
present state would scarcely survive.</p>
<p>It did not take the Fifth Men many centuries to devise a tolerable means of
voyaging in interplanetary space. Immense rockets were constructed, the motive
power of which was derived from the annihilation of matter. The vehicle was
propelled simply by the terrific pressure of radiation thus produced. "Fuel"
for a voyage of many months, or even years, could, of course, easily be
carried, since the annihilation of a minute amount of matter produced a vast
wealth of energy. Moreover, when once the vessel had emerged from the earth's
atmosphere, and had attained full speed, she would, of course, maintain it
without the use of power from the rocket apparatus. The task of rendering the
"ether ship" properly manageable and decently habitable proved difficult, but
not insurmountable. The first vessel to take the ether was a cigar-shaped hull
some three thousand feet long, and built of metals whose artificial atoms were
incomparably more rigid than anything hitherto known. Batteries of "rocket"
apparatus at various points on the hull enabled the ship not only to travel
forward, but to reverse, turn in any direction, or side-step. Windows of an
artificial transparent element, scarcely less strong than the metal of the
hull, enabled the voyagers to look around them. Within there was ample
accommodation for a hundred persons and their provisions for three years. Air
for the same period was manufactured in transit from protons and electrons
stored under pressure comparable to that in the interior of a star. Heat was,
of course, provided by the annihilation of matter. Powerful refrigeration would
permit the vessel to approach the sun almost to the orbit of Mercury. An
"artificial gravity" system, based on the properties of the electro-magnetic
field, could be turned on and regulated at will, so as to maintain a more or
less normal environment for the human organism.</p>
<p>This pioneer ship was manned with a navigating crew and a company of
scientists, and was successfully dispatched upon a trial trip. The intention
was to approach close to the surface of the moon, possibly to circumnavigate it
at an altitude of ten thousand feet, and to return without landing. For many
days those on earth received radio messages from the vessel's powerful
installation, reporting that all was going well. But suddenly the messages
ceased, and no more was ever heard of the vessel. Almost at the moment of the
last message, telescopes had revealed a sudden flash of light at a point on the
vessel's course. It was therefore surmised that she had collided with a meteor
and fused with the heat of the impact.</p>
<p>Other vessels were built and dispatched on trial voyages. Many failed to
return. Some got out of control, and reported that they were heading for outer
space or plunging toward the sun, their hopeless messages continuing until the
last of the crew succumbed to suffocation. Other vessels returned successfully,
but with crews haggard and distraught from long confinement in bad atmosphere.
One, venturing to land on the moon, broke her back, so that the air rushed out
of her, and her people died. After her last message was received, she was
detected from the earth, as an added speck on the stippled surface of a lunar
"sea."</p>
<p>As time passed, however, accidents became rarer; indeed, so rare that trips
in the void began to be a popular form of amusement. Literature of the period
reverberates with the novelty of such experiences, with the sense that man had
at last learned true flight, and acquired the freedom of the solar system.
Writers dwelt upon the shock of seeing, as the vessel soared and accelerated,
the landscape dwindle to a mere illuminated disk or crescent, surrounded by
constellations. They remarked also the awful remoteness and mystery which
travellers experienced on these early voyages, with dazzling sunlight on one
side of the vessel and dazzling bespangled night on the other. They described
how the intense sun spread his corona against a black and star-crowded sky.
They expatiated also on the overwhelming interest of approaching another
planet; of inspecting from the sky the still visible remains of Martian
civilization; of groping through the cloud banks of Venus to discover islands
in her almost coastless ocean; of daring an approach to Mercury, till the heat
became insupportable in spite of the best refrigerating mechanism; of feeling a
way across the belt of the asteroids and onwards toward Jupiter, till shortage
of air and provisions forced a return.</p>
<p>But though the mere navigation of space was thus easily accomplished, the
major task was still untouched. It was necessary either to remake man's nature
to suit another planet, or to modify conditions upon another planet to suit
man's nature. The former alternative was repugnant to the Fifth Men. Obviously
it would entail an almost complete refashioning of the human organism. No
existing individual could possibly be so altered as to live in the present
conditions of Mars or Venus. And it would probably prove impossible to create a
new being, adapted to these conditions, without sacrificing the brilliant and
harmonious constitution of the extant species.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Mars could not be made habitable without first being
stocked with air and water; and such an undertaking seemed impossible. There
was nothing for it, then, but to attack Venus. The polar surfaces of that
planet, shielded by impenetrable depths of cloud, proved after all not
unendurably hot. Subsequent generations might perhaps be modified so as to
withstand even the sub-arctic and "temperate" climates. Oxygen was plentiful,
but it was all tied up in chemical combination. Inevitably so, since oxygen
combines very readily, and on Venus there was no vegetable life to exhale the
free gas and replenish the ever-vanishing supply. It was necessary, then, to
equip Venus with an appropriate vegetation, which in the course of ages should
render the planet's atmosphere hospitable to man. The chemical and physical
conditions on Venus had therefore to be studied in great detail, so that it
might be possible to design a kind of life which would have a chance of
flourishing. This research had to be carried out from within the ether ships,
or with gas helmets, since no human being could live in the natural atmosphere
of the planet.</p>
<p>We must not dwell upon the age of heroic research and adventure which now
began. Observations of the lunar orbit were showing that ten millions years was
too long an estimate of the future habitability of the earth; and it was soon
realized that Venus could not be made ready soon enough unless some more rapid
change was set on foot. It was therefore decided to split up some of the ocean
of the planet into hydrogen and oxygen by a vast process of electrolysis. This
would have beets a more difficult task, had not the ocean been relatively free
from salt, owing to the fact that there was so little dry land to be denuded of
salts by rain and river. The oxygen thus formed by electrolysis would be
allowed to mix with the atmosphere. The hydrogen had to be got rid of somehow,
and an ingenious method was devised by which it should be ejected beyond the
limits of the atmosphere at so great a speed that it would never return. Once
sufficient free oxygen had been produced, the new vegetation would replenish
the loss due to oxidation. This work was duly set on foot. Great automatic
electrolysing stations were founded on several of the islands; and biological
research produced at length a whole flora of specialized vegetable types to
cover the land surface of the planet. It was hoped that in less than a million
years Venus would be fit to receive the human race, and the race fit to live on
Venus.</p>
<p>Meanwhile a careful survey of the planet had been undertaken. Its land
surface, scarcely more than a thousandth that of the earth, consisted of an
unevenly distributed archipelago of mountainous islands. The planet had
evidently not long ago been through a mountain-forming era, for soundings
proved its whole surface to be extravagantly corrugated. The ocean was subject
to terrific storms and currents; for since the planet took several weeks to
rotate, there was a great difference of temperature and atmospheric pressure
between the almost arctic hemisphere of night and the sweltering hemisphere of
day. So great was the evaporation, that open sky was almost never visible from
any part of the planet's surface; and indeed the average day-time weather was a
succession of thick fogs and fantastic thunderstorms. Rain in the evening was a
continuous torrent. Yet before night was over the waves clattered with
fragments of ice.</p>
<p>Man looked upon his future home with loathing, and on his birthplace with an
affection which became passionate. With its blue sky, its incomparable starry
nights, its temperate and varied continents, its ample spaces of agriculture,
wilderness and park, its well-known beasts and plants, and all the material
fabric of the most enduring of terrestrial civilizations, it seemed to the men
and women who were planning flight almost a living thing imploring them not to
desert it. They looked often with hate at the quiet moon, now visibly larger
than the moon of history. They revised again and again their astronomical and
physical theories, hoping for some flaw which should render the moon's observed
behaviour less mysterious, less terrifying. But they found nothing. It was as
though a fiend out of some ancient myth had come to life in the modern world,
to interfere with the laws of nature for man's undoing.</p>
<p><b>4. PREPARING A NEW WORLD</b></p>
<p>Another trouble now occurred. Several electrolysis stations on Venus were
wrecked, apparently by submarine eruption. Also, a number of etherships,
engaged in surveying the ocean, mysteriously exploded. The explanation was
found when one of these vessels, though damaged, was able to return to the
earth. The commander reported that, when the sounding line was drawn up, a
large spherical object was seen to be attached to it. Closer inspection showed
that this object was fastened to the sounding apparatus by a hook, and was
indeed unmistakably artificial, a structure of small metal plates riveted
together. While preparations were being made to bring the object within the
ship, it happened to bump against the hull, and then it exploded.</p>
<p>Evidently there must be intelligent life somewhere in the ocean of Venus.
Evidently the marine Venerians resented the steady depletion of their aqueous
world, and were determined to stop it. The terrestrials had assumed that water
in which no free oxygen was dissolved could not support life. But observation
soon revealed that in this world-wide ocean there were many living species,
some sessile, others free-swimming, some microscopic, others as large as
whales. The basis of life in these creatures lay not in photosynthesis and
chemical combination, but in the controlled disintegration of radio-active
atoms. Venus was particularly rich in these atoms, and still contained certain
elements which had long ago ceased to exist on the earth. The oceanic fauna
subsisted in the destruction of minute quantities of radio-active atoms
throughout its tissues.</p>
<p>Several of the Venerian species had attained considerable mastery over their
physical environment, and were able to destroy one another very competently
with various mechanical contrivances. Many types were indeed definitely
intelligent and versatile within certain limits. And of these intelligent
types, one had come to dominate all the others by virtue of its superior
intelligence, and had constructed a genuine civilization on the basis of
radio-active power. These most developed of all the Venerian creatures were
beings of about the size and shape of a swordfish. They had three manipulative
organs, normally sheathed within the long "sword," but capable of extension
beyond its point, as three branched muscular tentacles. They swam with a
curious screw-like motion of their bodies and triple tails. Three fins enabled
them to steer. They had also organs of phosphorescence, vision, touch, and
something analogous to hearing. They appeared to reproduce asexually, laying
eggs in the ooze of the ocean bed. They had no need of nutrition in the
ordinary sense; but in infancy they seemed to gather enough radio-active matter
to keep them alive for many years. Each individual, when his stock was running
out and he began to be feeble, was either destroyed by his juniors or buried in
a radio-active mine, to rise from this living death in a few months completely
rejuvenated.</p>
<p>At the bottom of the Venerian ocean these creatures thronged in cities of
proliferated coral-like buildings, equipped with many complex articles, which
must have constituted the necessities and luxuries of their civilization. So
much was ascertained by the Terrestrials in the course of their submarine
exploration. But the mental life of Venerians remained hidden. It was clear,
indeed, that like all living things, they were concerned with self-maintenance
and the exercise of their capacities; but of the nature of these capacities
little was discoverable. Clearly they used some kind of symbolic language,
based on mechanical vibrations set up in the water by the snapping claws of
their tentacles. But their more complex activities were quite unintelligible.
All that could be recorded with certainty was that they were much addicted to
warfare, even to warfare between groups of one species; and that even in the
stress of military disaster they maintained a feverish production of material
articles of all sorts, which they proceeded to destroy and neglect.</p>
<p>One activity was observed which was peculiarly mysterious. At certain
seasons three individuals, suddenly developing unusual luminosity, would
approach one another with rhythmic swayings and tremors, and would then rise on
their tails and press their bodies together. Sometimes at this stage an excited
crowd would collect, whirling around the three like driven snow. The chief
performers would now furiously tear one another to pieces with their crab-like
pincers, till nothing was left but tangled shreds of flesh, the great swords,
and the still twitching claws. The Terrestrials, observing these matters with
difficulty, at first suspected some kind of sexual intercourse; but no
reproduction was ever traced to this source. Possibly the behaviour had once
served a biological end, and had now become a useless ritual. Possibly it was a
kind of voluntary religious sacrifice. More probably it was of a quite
different nature, unintelligible to the human mind.</p>
<p>As man's activities on Venus became more extensive, the Venerians became
more energetic in seeking to destroy him. They could not come out of the ocean
to grapple with him, for they were deep-sea organisms. Deprived of oceanic
pressure, they would have burst. But they contrived to hurl high explosives
into the centres of the islands, or to undermine them from tunnels. The work of
electrolysis was thus very seriously hampered. And as all efforts to parley
with the Venerians failed completely, it was impossible to effect a compromise.
The Fifth Men were thus faced with a grave moral problem. What right had man to
interfere in a world already possessed by beings who were obviously
intelligent, even though their mental life was incomprehensible to man? Long
ago man himself had suffered at the hands of Martian invaders, who doubtless
regarded themselves as more noble than the human race. And now man was
committing a similar crime. On the other hand, either the migration to Venus
must go forward, or humanity must be destroyed; for it seemed quite certain by
now that the moon would fall, and at no very distant date. And though man's
understanding of the Venerians was so incomplete, what he did know of them
strongly suggested that they were definitely inferior to himself in mental
range. The judgment might, of course, be mistaken; the Venerians might after
all be so superior to man that man could not get an inkling of their
superiority. But this argument would apply equally to jelly-fish and
micro-organisms. Judgment had to be passed according to the evidence available.
So far as man could judge at all in the matter, he was definitely the higher
type.</p>
<p>There was another fact to be taken into account. The life of the Venerian
organism depended on the existence of radio-active atoms. Since those atoms are
subject to disintegration, they must become rarer. Venus was far better
supplied than the earth in this respect, but there must inevitably come a time
when there would be no more radio-active matter in Venus. Now submarine
research showed that the Venerian fauna had once been much more extensive, and
that the increasing difficulty of procuring radio-active matter was already the
great limiting factor of civilization. Thus the Venerians were doomed, and man
would merely hasten their destruction.</p>
<p>It was hoped, of course, that in colonizing Venus mankind would be able to
accommodate itself without seriously interfering with the native population.
But this proved impossible for two reasons. In the first place, the natives
seemed determined to destroy the invader even if they should destroy themselves
in the process. Titanic explosions were engineered, which caused the invaders
serious damage, but also strewed the ocean surface with thousands of dead
Venerians. Secondly, it was found that, as electrolysis poured more and more
free oxygen into the atmosphere, the ocean absorbed some of the potent element
back into itself by solution; and this dissolved oxygen had a disastrous effect
upon the oceanic organisms. Their tissues began to oxidize. They were burnt up,
internally and externally, by a slow fire. Man dared not stop the process of
electrolysis until the atmosphere had become as rich in oxygen as his native
air. Long before this state was reached, it was already clear that the
Venerians were beginning to feel the effects of the poison, and that in a few
thousand years, at most, they would be exterminated. It was therefore
determined to put them out of their misery as quickly as possible. Men could by
now walk abroad on the islands of Venus, and indeed the first settlements were
already being founded. They were thus able to build a fleet of powerful
submarine vessels to scour the ocean and destroy the whole native fauna.</p>
<p>This vast slaughter influenced the mind of the fifth human species in two
opposite directions, now flinging it into despair, now rousing it to grave
elation. For on the one hand the horror of the slaughter produced a haunting
guiltiness in all men's minds, an unreasoning disgust with humanity for having
been driven to murder in order to save itself. And this guiltiness combined
with the purely intellectual loss of self-confidence which had been produced by
the failure of science to account for the moon's approach. It re-awakened,
also, that other quite irrational sense of guilt which had been bred of
sympathy with the everlasting distress of the past. Together, these three
influences tended toward racial neurosis.</p>
<p>On the other hand a very different mood sometimes sprang from the same three
sources. After all, the failure of science was a challenge to be gladly
accepted; it opened up a wealth of possibilities hitherto unimagined. Even the
unalterable distress of the past constituted a challenge; for in some strange
manner the present and future, it was said, must transfigure the past. As for
the murder of Venerian life, it was, indeed, terrible, but right. It had been
committed without hate; indeed, rather in love. For as the navy proceeded with
its relentless work, it had gathered much insight into the life of the natives,
and had learned to admire, even in a sense to love, while it killed. This mood,
of inexorable yet not ruthless will, intensified the spiritual sensibility of
the species, refined, so to speak, its spiritual hearing, and revealed to it
tones and themes in the universal music which were hitherto obscure.</p>
<p>Which of these two moods, despair or courage, would triumph? All depended on
the skill of the species to maintain a high degree of vitality in untoward
circumstances.</p>
<p>Man now busied himself in preparing his new home. Many kinds of plant life,
derived from the terrestrial stock, but bred for the Venerian environment, now
began to swarm on the islands and in the sea. For so restricted was the land
surface, that great areas of ocean had to be given over to specially designed
marine plants, which now formed immense floating continents of vegetable
matter. On the least torrid islands appeared habitable pylons, forming an
architectural forest, with vegetation on every acre of free ground. Even so, it
would be impossible for Venus ever to support the huge population of the earth.
Steps had therefore been taken to ensure that the birth-rate should fall far
short of the death-rate; so that, when the time should come, the race might
emigrate without leaving any living members behind. No more than a hundred
million, it was reckoned, could live tolerably on Venus. The population had
therefore to be reduced to a hundredth of its former size, And since, in the
terrestrial community, with its vast social and cultural activity, every
individual had fulfilled some definite function in society, it was obvious that
the new community must be not merely small but mentally impoverished. Hitherto,
each individual had been enriched by intercourse with a far more intricate and
diverse social environment than would be possible on Venus.</p>
<p>Such was the prospect when at length it was judged advisable to leave the
earth to its fate. The moon was now so huge that it periodically turned day
into night, and night into a ghastly day. Prodigious tides and distressful
weather conditions had already spoilt the amenities of the earth, and done
great damage to the fabric of civilization. And so at length humanity
reluctantly took flight. Some centuries passed before the migration was
completed, before Venus had received, not only the whole remaining human
population, but also representatives of many other species of organisms, and
all the most precious treasures of man's culture.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER XIII. HUMANITY ON VENUS</h3>
<p><b>1. TAKING ROOT AGAIN</b></p>
<p>Man's sojourn on Venus lasted somewhat longer than his whole career on the
Earth. From the days of Pithecanthropus to the final evacuation of his native
planet he passed, as we have seen, through a bewildering diversity of form and
circumstance, On Venus, though the human type was somewhat more constant
biologically, it was scarcely less variegated in culture.</p>
<p>To give an account of this period, even on the minute scale that has been
adopted hitherto, would entail another volume. I can only sketch its bare
outline. The sapling, humanity, transplanted into foreign soil, withers at
first almost to the root, slowly readjusts itself, grows into strength and a
certain permanence of form, burgeons, season by season, with leaf and flower of
many successive civilizations and cultures, sleeps winter by winter, through
many ages of reduced vitality, but at length (to force the metaphor), avoids
this recurrent defeat by attaining an evergreen constitution and a continuous
efflorescence. Then once more, through the whim of Fate, it is plucked up by
the roots and cast upon another world.</p>
<p>The first human settlers on Venus knew well that life would be a sorry
business. They had done their best to alter the planet to suit human nature,
but they could not make Venus into another Earth. The land surface was minute.
The climate was almost unendurable. The extreme difference of temperature
between the protracted day and night produced incredible storms, rain like a
thousand contiguous waterfalls, terrifying electrical disturbances, and fogs in
which a man could not see his own feet. To make matters worse, the oxygen
supply was as yet barely enough to render the air breathable. Worse still, the
liberated hydrogen was not always successfully ejected from the atmosphere. It
would sometimes mingle with the air to form an explosive mixture, and sooner or
later there would occur a vast atmospheric flash. Recurrent disasters of this
sort destroyed the architecture and the human inhabitants of many islands, and
further reduced the oxygen supply. In time, however, the increasing vegetation
made it possible to put an end to the dangerous process of electrolysis.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, these atmospheric explosions crippled the race so seriously that
it was unable to cope with a more mysterious trouble which beset it some time
after the migration. A new and inexplicable decay of the digestive organs,
which first occurred as a rare disease, threatened within a few centuries to
destroy mankind. The physical effects of this plague were scarcely more
disastrous than the psychological effects of the complete failure to master it;
for, what with the mystery of the moon's vagaries and the deep-seated,
unreasoning, sense of guilt produced by the extermination of the Venerians,
man's self-confidence was already seriously shaken, and his highly organized
mentality began to show symptoms of derangement. The new plague was, indeed,
finally traced to something in the Venerian water, and was supposed to be due
to certain molecular groupings, formerly rare, but subsequently fostered by the
presence of terrestrial organic matter in the ocean. No cure was
discovered.</p>
<p>And now another plague seized upon the enfeebled race. Human tissues had
never perfectly assimilated the Martian units which were the means of
"telepathic" communication. The universal ill-health now favoured a kind of
"cancer" of the nervous system, which was due to the ungoverned proliferation
of these units. The harrowing results of this disease may be left unmentioned.
Century by century it increased; and even those who did not actually contract
the sickness lived in constant terror of madness.</p>
<p>These troubles were aggravated by the devastating heat. The hope that, as
the generations passed, human nature would adapt itself even to the more sultry
regions, seemed to be unfounded. Far otherwise, within a thousand years the
once-populous arctic and antarctic islands were almost deserted. Out of each
hundred of the great pylons, scarcely more than two were inhabited, and these
only by a few plague-stricken and broken-spirited human relics. These alone
were left to turn their telescopes upon the earth and watch the unexpectedly
delayed bombardment of their native world by the fragments of the moon.</p>
<p>Population decreased still further. Each brief generation was slightly less
well developed than its parents. Intelligence declined. Education became
superficial and restricted. Contact with the past was no longer possible. Art
lost its significance, and philosophy its dominion over the minds of men. Even
applied science began to be too difficult. Unskilled control of the sub-atomic
sources of power led to a number of disasters, which finally gave rise to a
superstition that all "tampering with nature" was wicked, and all the ancient
wisdom a snare of Man's Enemy. Books, instruments, all the treasures of human
culture, were therefore burnt. Only the perdurable buildings resisted
destruction. Of the incomparable world-order of the Fifth Men nothing was left
but a few island tribes cut off from one another by the ocean, and from the
rest of space-time by the depths of their own ignorance.</p>
<p>After many thousands of years human nature did begin to adapt itself to the
climate and to the poisoned water without which life was impossible. At the
same time a new variety of the fifth species now began to appear, in which the
Martian units were not included. Thus at last the race regained a certain
mental stability, at the expense of its faculty of "telepathy," which man was
not to regain until almost the last phase of his career. Meanwhile, though he
had recovered somewhat from the effects of an alien world, the glory that had
been was no more. Let us therefore hurry through the ages that passed before
noteworthy events again occurred.</p>
<p>In early days on Venus men had gathered their foodstuff from the great
floating islands of vegetable matter which had been artificially produced
before the migration. But as the oceans became populous with modifications of
the terrestrial fauna, the human tribes turned more and more to fishing. Under
the influence of its marine environment, one branch of the species assumed such
an aquatic habit that in time it actually began to develop biological
adaptations for marine life. It is perhaps surprising that man was still
capable of spontaneous variation; but the fifth human species was artificial,
and had always been prone to epidemics of mutation. After some millions of
years of variation and selection there appeared a very successful species of
seal-like sub-men. The whole body was moulded to stream-lines. The lung
capacity was greatly developed. The spine had elongated, and increased in
flexibility. The legs were shrunken, grown together, and flattened into a
horizontal rudder. The arms also were diminutive and fin-like, though they
still retained the manipulative forefinger and thumb. The head had shrunk into
the body and looked forward in the direction of swimming. Strong carnivorous
teeth, emphatic gregariousness, and a new, almost human, cunning in the chase,
combined to make these seal-men lords of the ocean. And so they remained for
many million years, until a more human race, annoyed at their piscatorial
success, harpooned them out of existence.</p>
<p>For another branch of the degenerated fifth species had retained a more
terrestrial habit and the ancient human form. Sadly reduced in stature and in
brain, these abject beings were so unlike the original invaders that they are
rightly considered a new species, and may therefore be called the Sixth Men.
Age after age they gained a precarious livelihood by grubbing roots upon the
forest-clad islands, trapping the innumerable birds, and catching fish in the
tidal inlets with ground bait. Not infrequently they devoured, or were devoured
by, their seal-like relatives. So restricted and constant was the environment
of these human remnants, that they remained biologically and culturally
stagnant for some millions of years.</p>
<p>At length, however, geological events afforded man's nature once more the
opportunity of change. A mighty warping of the planet's crust produced an
island almost as large as Australia. In time this was peopled, and from the
clash of tribes a new and versatile race emerged. Once more there was
methodical tillage, craftsmanship, complex social organization, and adventure
in the realm of thought.</p>
<p>During the next two hundred million years all the main phases of man's life
on earth were many times repeated on Venus with characteristic differences.
Theocratic empires; free and intellectualistic island cities; insecure
overlordship of feudal archipelagos; rivalries of high priest and emperor;
religious feuds over the interpretation of sacred scriptures; recurrent
fluctuations of thought from na&iuml;ve animism, through polytheism,
conflicting monotheisms, and all the desperate "isms" by which mind seeks to
blur the severe outline of truth; recurrent fashions of comfort-seeking fantasy
and cold intelligence; social disorders through the misuse of volcanic or wind
power in industry; business empires and pseudo-communistic empires-- all these
forms flitted over the changing substance of mankind again and again, as in an
enduring hearth fire there appear and vanish the infinitely diverse forms of
flame and smoke. But all the while the brief spirits, in whose massed
configurations these forms inhered, were intent chiefly on the primitive needs
of food, shelter, companionship, crowd-lust, love-making, the two-edged
relationship of parent and child, the exercise of muscle and intelligence in
facile sport. Very seldom, only in rare moments of clarity, only after ages of
misapprehension, did a few of them, here and there, now and again, begin to
have the deeper insight into the world's nature and man's. And no sooner had
this precious insight begun to propagate itself, than it would be blotted out
by some small or great disaster, by epidemic disease, by the spontaneous
disruption of society, by an access of racial imbecility, by a prolonged
bombardment of meteorites, or by the mere cowardice and vertigo that dared not
look down the precipice of fact.</p>
<p><b>2. THE FLYING MEN</b></p>
<p>We need not dwell upon these multitudinous reiterations of culture, but must
glance for a moment at the last phase of this sixth human species, so that we
may pass on to the artificial species which it produced.</p>
<p>Throughout their career the Sixth Men had often been fascinated by the idea
of flight. The bird was again and again their most sacred symbol. Their
monotheism was apt to be worship not of a god-man, but of a god-bird, conceived
now as the divine sea-eagle, winged with power, now as the giant swift, winged
with mercy, now as a disembodied spirit of air, and once as the bird-god that
became man to endow the human race with flight, physical and spiritual.</p>
<p>It was inevitable that flight should obsess man on Venus, for the planet
afforded but a cramping home for groundlings; and the riotous efflorescence of
avian species shamed man's pedestrian habit. When in due course the Sixth Men
attained knowledge and power comparable to that of the First Men at their
height, they invented flying-machines of various types. Many times, indeed,
mechanical flight was rediscovered and lost again with the downfall of
civilization. But at its best it was regarded only as a makeshift. And when at
length, with the advance of the biological sciences, the Sixth Men were in a
position to influence the human organism itself, they determined to produce a
true flying man. Many civilizations strove vainly for this result, sometimes
half-heartedly, sometimes with religious earnestness. Finally the most enduring
and brilliant of all the civilizations of the Sixth Men actually attained the
goal.</p>
<p>The Seventh Men were pigmies, scarcely heavier than the largest of
terrestrial flying birds. Through and through they were organized for flight. A
leathery membrane spread from the foot to the tip of the immensely elongated
and strengthened "middle" finger. The three "outer" fingers, equally elongated,
served as ribs to the membrane; while the index and thumb remained free for
manipulation. The body assumed the streamlines of a bird, and was covered with
a deep quilt of feathery wool. This, and the silken down of the
flight-membranes, varied greatly from individual to individual in colouring and
texture. On the ground the Seventh Men walked much as other human beings, for
the flight-membranes were folded close to the legs and body, and hung from the
arms like exaggerated sleeves. In flight the legs were held extended as a
flattened tail, with the feet locked together by the big toes. The breastbone
was greatly developed as a keel, and as a base for the muscles of flight. The
other bones were hollow, for lightness, and their internal surfaces were
utilized as supplementary lungs. For, like the birds, these flying men had to
maintain a high rate of oxidation. A state which others would regard as fever
was normal to them.</p>
<p>Their brains were given ample tracts for the organization of prowess in
flight. In fact, it was found possible to equip the species with a system of
reflexes for aerial balance, and a true, though artificial, instinctive
aptitude for flight, and interest in flight. Compared with their makers their
brain volume was of necessity small, but their whole neural system was very
carefully organized. Also it matured rapidly, and was extremely facile in the
acquirement of new modes of activity. This was very desirable; for the
individual's natural life period was but fifty years, and in most cases it was
deliberately cut short by some impossible feat at about forty, or whenever the
symptoms of old age began to be felt.</p>
<p>Of all human species these bat-like Flying Men, the Seventh Men, were
probably the most care-free. Gifted with harmonious physique and gay
temperament, they came into a social heritage well adapted to their nature.
There was no occasion for them, as there had often been for some others, to
regard the world as fundamentally hostile to life, or themselves as essentially
deformed. Of quick intelligence in respect of daily personal affairs and social
organization, they were untroubled by the insatiable lust of understanding. Not
that they were an unintellectual race, for they soon formulated a beautifully
systematic account of experience. They clearly perceived, however, that the
perfect sphere of their thought was but a bubble adrift in chaos. Yet it was an
elegant bubble. And the system was true, in its own gay and frankly insincere
manner, true as significant metaphor, not literally true. What more, it was
asked, could be expected of human intellect? Adolescents were encouraged to
study the ancient problems of philosophy, for no reason but to convince
themselves of the futility of probing beyond the limits of the orthodox system.
"Prick the bubble of thought at any point," it was said, "and you shatter the
whole of it. And since thought is one of the necessities of human life, it must
be preserved."</p>
<p>Natural science was taken over from the earlier species with
half-contemptuous gratitude, as a necessary means of sane adjustment to the
environment. Its practical applications were valued as the ground of the social
order; but as the millennia advanced, and society approached that remarkable
perfection and stability which was to endure for many million years, scientific
inventiveness became less and less needful, and science itself was relegated to
the infant schools. History also was given in outline during childhood, and
subsequently ignored.</p>
<p>This curiously sincere intellectual insincerity was due to the fact that the
Seventh Men were chiefly concerned with matters other than abstract thought. It
is difficult to give to members of the first human species an inkling of the
great preoccupation of these Flying Men. To say that it was flight would be
true, yet far less than the truth. To say that they sought to live dangerously
and vividly, to crowd as much experience as possible into each moment, would
again be a caricature of the truth. On the physical plane indeed "the universe
of flight" with all the variety of peril and skill afforded by a tempestuous
atmosphere, was every individual's chief medium of self-expression. Yet it was
not flight itself, but the spiritual aspect of flight, which obsessed the
species.</p>
<p>In the air and on the ground the Seventh Men were different beings. Whenever
they exercised themselves in flight they suffered a remarkable change of
spirit. Much of their time had to be spent on the ground, since most of the
work upon which civilization rested was impossible in the air. Moreover, life
in the air was life at high pressure, and necessitated spells of recuperation
on the ground. In their pedestrian phase the Seventh Men were sober folk,
mildly bored, yet in the main cheerful, humorously impatient of the drabness
and irk of pedestrian affairs, but ever supported by memory and anticipation of
the vivid life of the air. Often they were tired, after the strain of that
other life, but seldom were they despondent or lazy. Indeed, in the routine of
agriculture and industry they were industrious as the wingless ants. Yet they
worked in a strange mood of attentive absentmindedness; for their hearts were
ever in the air. So long as they could have frequent periods of aviation, they
remained bland even on the ground. But if for any reason such as illness they
were confined to the ground for a long period, they pined, developed acute
melancholia, and died. Their makers had so contrived them that with the onset
of any very great pain or misery their hearts should stop. Thus they were to
avoid all serious distress. But, in fact, this merciful device worked only on
the ground. In the air they assumed a very different and more heroic nature,
which their makers had not foreseen, though indeed it was a natural consequence
of their design.</p>
<p>In the air the flying man's heart beat more powerfully. His temperature
rose. His sensation became more vivid and more discriminate, his intelligence
more agile and penetrating. He experienced a more intense pleasure or pain in
all that happened to him. It would not be true to say that he became more
emotional; rather the reverse, if by emotionality is meant enslavement to the
emotions. For the most remarkable features of the aerial phase was that this
enhanced power of appreciation was dispassionate. So long as the individual was
in the air, whether in lonely struggle with the storm, or in the ceremonial
ballet with sky-darkening hosts of his fellows; whether in the ecstatic love
dance with a sexual partner, or in solitary and meditative circlings far above
the world; whether his enterprise was fortunate, or he found himself
dismembered by the hurricane, and crashing to death; always the gay and the
tragic fortunes of his own person were regarded equally with detached aesthetic
delight. Even when his dearest companion was mutilated or destroyed by some
aerial disaster, he exulted; though also he would give his own life in the hope
of effecting a rescue. But very soon after he had returned to the ground he
would be overwhelmed with grief, would strive vainly to recapture the lost
vision, and would perhaps die of heart failure.</p>
<p>Even when, as happened occasionally in the wild climate of Venus, a whole
aerial population was destroyed by some world-wide atmospheric tumult, the few
broken survivors, so long as they could remain in the air, exulted. And
actually while at length they sank exhausted toward the ground, toward certain
disillusionment and death, they laughed inwardly. Yet an hour after they had
alighted, their constitution would be changed, their vision lost. They would
remember only the horror of the disaster, and the memory would kill them.</p>
<p>No wonder the Seventh Men grudged every moment that was passed on the
ground. While they were in the air, of course, the prospect of a pedestrian
interlude, or indeed of endless pedestrianism, though in a manner repugnant,
would be accepted with unswerving gaiety; but while they were on the ground,
they grudged bitterly to be there. Early in the career of the species the
proportion of aerial to terrestrial hours was increased by a biological
invention. A minute food plant was produced which spent the winter rooted in
the ground, and the summer adrift in the sunlit upper air, engaged solely in
photosynthesis. Henceforth the populations of the Flying Men were able to
browse upon the bright pastures of the sky, like swallows. As the ages passed,
material civilization became more and more simplified. Needs which could not be
satisfied without terrestrial labour tended to be outgrown. Manufactured
articles became increasingly rare. Books were no longer written or read. In the
main, indeed, they were no longer necessary; but to some extent their place was
taken by verbal tradition and discussion, in the upper air. Of the arts, music,
spoken lyric and epic verse, and the supreme art of winged dance, were
constantly practised. The rest vanished. Many of the sciences inevitably faded
into tradition; yet the true scientific spirit was preserved in a very exact
meteorology, a sufficient biology, and a human psychology surpassed only by the
second and fifth species at their height. None of these sciences, however, was
taken very seriously, save in its practical applications. For instance,
psychology explained the ecstasy of flight very neatly as a febrile and
"irrational" beatitude. But no one was disconcerted by this theory; for every
one, while on the wing, felt it to be merely an amusing half-truth.</p>
<p>The social order of the Seventh Men was in essence neither utilitarian, nor
humanistic, nor religious, but aesthetic. Every act and every institution were
to be justified as contributing to the perfect form of the community. Even
social prosperity was conceived as merely the medium in which beauty should be
embodied, the beauty, namely, of vivid individual lives harmoniously related.
Yet not only for the individual, but even for the race itself (so the wise
insisted), death on the wing was more excellent than prolonged life on the
ground. Better, far better, would be racial suicide than a future of
pedestrianism. Yet though both the individual and the race were conceived as
instrumental to objective beauty, there was nothing religious, in any ordinary
sense, in this conviction. The Seventh Men were completely without interest in
the universal and the unseen. The beauty which they sought to create was
ephemeral and very largely sensuous. And they were well content that it should
he so. Personal immortality, said a dying sage, would be as tedious as an
endless song. Equally so with the race. The lovely flame, of which we all are
members, must die, he said, must die; for without death she would fall short of
beauty.</p>
<p>For close on a hundred million terrestrial years this aerial society endured
with little change. On many of the islands throughout this period stood even
yet a number of the ancient pylons, though repaired almost beyond recognition.
In these nests the men and women of the seventh species slept through the long
Venerian nights, crowded like roosting swallows. By day the same great towers
were sparsely peopled with those who were serving their turn in industry, while
in the fields and on the sea others laboured. But most were in the air. Many
would be skimming the ocean, to plunge, gannet-like, for fish. Many, circling
over land or sea, would now and again swoop like hawks upon the wild-fowl which
formed the chief meat of the species. Others, forty or fifty thousand feet
above the waves, where even the plentiful atmosphere of Venus was scarcely
capable of supporting them, would be soaring, circling, sweeping, for pure joy
of flight. Others, in the calm and sunshine of high altitudes, would be hanging
effortless upon some steady up-current of air for meditation and the rapture of
mere percipience. Not a few love-intoxicated pairs would be entwining their
courses in aerial patterns, in spires, cascades, and true love-knots of flight,
presently to embrace and drop ten thousand feet in bodily union. Some would be
driving hither and thither through the green mists of vegetable particles,
gathering the manna in their open mouths. Companies, circling together, would
be discussing matters social or aesthetic; others would be singing together, or
listening to recitative epic verse. Thousands, gathering in the sky like
migratory birds, would perform massed convolutions, reminiscent of the vast
mechanical aerial choreography of the First World State, but more vital and
expressive, as a bird's flight is more vital than the flight of any machine.
And all the while there would be some, solitary or in companies, who, either in
the pursuit of fish and wildfowl, or out of pure devilment, pitted their
strength and skill against the hurricane, often tragically, but never without
zest, and laughter of the spirit.</p>
<p>It may seem to some incredible that the culture of the Seventh Men should
have lasted so long. Surely it must either have decayed through mere monotony
and stagnation or have advanced into richer experience. But no. Generation
succeeded generation, and each was too short-lived to outlast its young delight
and discover boredom. Moreover, so perfect was the adjustment of these beings
to their world, that even if they had lived for centuries they would have felt
no need of change. Flight provided them with intense physical exhilaration, and
with the physical basis of a genuine and ecstatic, though limited, spiritual
experience. In this their supreme attainment they rejoiced not only in the
diversity of flight itself, but also in the perceived beauties of their
variegated world, and most of all, perhaps, in the thousand lyric and epic
ventures of human intercourse in an aerial community.</p>
<p>The end of this seemingly everlasting elysium was nevertheless involved in
the very nature of the species. In the first place, as the ages lengthened into
aeons, the generations preserved less and less of the ancient scientific lore.
For it became insignificant to them. The aerial community had no need of it.
This loss of mere information did not matter so long as their condition
remained unaltered; but in due course biological changes began to undermine
them. The species had always been prone to a certain biological instability. A
proportion of infants, varying with circumstances, had always been misshapen;
and the deformity had generally been such as to make flight impossible. The
normal infant was able to fly early in its second year. If some accident
prevented it from doing so, it invariably fell into a decline and died before
its third year was passed. But many of the deformed types, being the result of
a partial reversion to the pedestrian nature, were able to live on indefinitely
without flight. According to a merciful custom these cripples had always to be
destroyed. But at length, owing to the gradual exhaustion of a certain marine
salt essential to the high-strung nature of the Seventh Men, infants were more
often deformed than true to type. The world population declined so seriously
that the organized aerial life of the community could no longer be carried on
according to the time-honoured aesthetic principles. No one knew how to check
this racial decay, but many felt that with greater biological knowledge it
might be avoided. A disastrous policy was now adopted. It was decided to spare
a carefully selected proportion of the deformed infants, those namely which,
though doomed to pedestrianism, were likely to develop high intelligence. Thus
it was hoped to raise a specialized group of persons whose work should be
biological research untrammelled by the intoxication of flight.</p>
<p>The brilliant cripples that resulted from this policy looked at existence
from a new angle. Deprived of the supreme experience for which their fellows
lived, envious of a bliss which they knew only by report, yet contemptuous of
the na&iuml;ve mentality which cared for nothing (it seemed) but physical
exercise, love-making, the beauty of nature, and the elegances of society,
these flightless intelligences sought satisfaction almost wholly in the life of
research and scientific control. At the best, however, they were a tortured and
resentful race. For their natures were fashioned for the aerial life which they
could not lead. Although they received from the winged folk just treatment and
a certain compassionate respect, they writhed under this kindness, locked their
hearts against all the orthodox values, and sought out new ideals. Within a few
centuries they had rehabilitated the life of intellect, and, with the power
that knowledge gives, they had made themselves masters of the world. The
amiable fliers were surprised, perplexed, even pained; and yet withal amused.
Even when it became evident that the pedestrians were determined to create a
new world order in which there would be no place for the beauties of natural
flight, the fliers were only distressed while they were on the ground.</p>
<p>The islands were becoming crowded with machinery and flightless
industrialists. In the air itself the winged folk found themselves outstripped
by the base but effective instruments of mechanical flight. Wings became a
laughing stock, and the life of natural flight was condemned as a barren
luxury. It was ordained that in future every flier must serve the pedestrian
world-order, or starve. And as the cultivation of wind borne plants had been
abandoned, and fishing and fowling rights were strictly controlled, this law
was no empty form. At first it was impossible for the fliers to work on the
ground for long hours, day after day, without incurring serious ill-health and
an early death. But the pedestrian physiologists invented a drug which
preserved the poor wage-slaves in something like physical health, and actually
prolonged their life. No drug, however, could restore their spirit, for their
normal aerial habit was reduced to a few tired hours of recreation once a week.
Meanwhile, breeding experiments were undertaken to produce a wholly wingless
large-brained type. And finally a law was enacted by which all winged infants
must be either mutilated or destroyed. At this point the fliers made an heroic
but ineffectual bid for power. They attacked the pedestrian population from the
air. In reply the enemy rode them down in his great aeroplanes and blew them to
pieces with high explosive.</p>
<p>The fighting squadrons of the natural fliers were finally driven to the
ground in a remote and barren island. Thither the whole flying population, a
mere remnant of its former strength, fled out of every civilized archipelago in
search of freedom: the whole population--save the sick, who committed suicide,
and all infants that could not yet fly. These were stifled by their mothers or
next-of-kin, in obedience to a decree of the leaders. About a million men,
women and children, some of whom were scarcely old enough for the prolonged
flight, now gathered on the rocks, regardless that there was not food in the
neighbourhood for a great company.</p>
<p>Their leaders, conferring together, saw clearly that the day of Flying Man
was done, and that it would be more fitting for a high-souled race to die at
once than to drag on in subjection to contemptuous masters. They therefore
ordered the population to take part in an act of racial suicide that should at
least make death a noble gesture of freedom. The people received the message
while they were resting on the stony moorland. A wail of sorrow broke from
them. It was checked by the speaker, who bade them strive to see, even on the
ground, the beauty of the thing that was to be done. They could not see it; but
they knew that if they had the strength to take wing again they would see it
clearly, almost as soon as their tired muscles bore them aloft. There was no
time to waste, for many were already faint with hunger, and anxious lest they
should fail to rise. At the appointed signal the whole population rose into the
air with a deep roar of wings. Sorrow was left behind. Even the children, when
their mothers explained what was to be done, accepted their fate with zest;
though, had they learned of it on the ground, they would have been
terror-stricken. The company now flew steadily west, forming themselves into a
double file many miles long. The cone of a volcano appeared over the horizon,
and rose as they approached. The leaders pressed on towards its ruddy smoke
plume; and unflinchingly, couple by couple, the whole multitude darted into its
fiery breath and vanished. So ended the career of Flying Man.</p>
<p><b>3. A MINOR ASTRONOMICAL EVENT</b></p>
<p>The flightless yet still half avian race that now possessed the planet
settled down to construct a society based on industry and science. After many
vicissitudes of fortune and of aim, they produced a new human species, the
Eighth Men. These long-headed and substantial folk were designed to be strictly
pedestrian, physically and mentally. Apt for manipulation, calculation and
invention, they very soon turned Venus into an engineer's paradise. With power
drawn from the planet's central heat, their huge electric ships bored steadily
through the perennial monsoons and hurricanes, which also their aircraft
treated with contempt. Islands were joined by tunnels and by millipede bridges.
Every inch of land served some industrial or agricultural end. So successfully
did the generations amass wealth that their rival races and rival castes were
able to indulge, every few centuries, in vast revelries of mutual slaughter and
material destruction without, as a rule, impoverishing their descendants. And
so insensitive had man become that these orgies shamed him not at all. Indeed,
only by the ardours of physical violence could this most philistine species
wrench itself for a while out of its complacency. Strife which to nobler beings
would have been a grave spiritual disaster, was for these a tonic, almost a
religious exercise. These cathartic paroxysms, it should be observed, were but
the rare and brief crises which automatically punctuated ages of stolid peace.
At no time did they threaten the existence of the species; seldom did they even
destroy its civilization.</p>
<p>It was after a lengthy period of peace and scientific advancement that the
Eighth Men made a startling astronomical discovery. Ever since the First Men
had learned that in the life of every star there comes a critical moment when
the great orb collapses, shrinking to a minute, dense grain with feeble
radiation, man had periodically suspected that the sun was about to undergo
this change, and become a typical "White Dwarf." The Eighth Men detected sure
signs of the catastrophe, and predicted its date. Twenty thousand years they
gave themselves before the change should begin. In another fifty thousand
years, they guessed, Venus would probably be frozen and uninhabitable. The only
hope was to migrate to Mercury during the great change, when that planet was
already ceasing to be intolerably hot. It was necessary then to give Mercury an
atmosphere, and to breed a new species which should be capable of adapting
itself finally to a world of extreme cold.</p>
<p>This desperate operation was already on foot when a new astronomical
discovery rendered it futile. Astronomers detected, some distance from the
solar system, a volume of non-luminous gas. Calculation showed that this object
and the sun were approaching one another at a tangent, and that they would
collide, Further calculation revealed the probable results of this event. The
sun would flare up and expand prodigiously. Life would be quite impossible on
any of the planets save, just possibly, Uranus, and more probably Neptune. The
three planets beyond Neptune would escape roasting, but were unsuitable for
other reasons, The two outermost would remain glacial, and, moreover, lay
beyond the range of the imperfect etherships of the Eighth Men. The innermost
was practically a bald globe of iron, devoid not merely of atmosphere and
water, but also of the normal covering of rock. Neptune alone might be able to
support life; but how could even Neptune be populated? Not only was its
atmosphere very unsuitable, and its gravitational pull such as to make man's
body an intolerable burden, but also up to the time of the collision it would
remain excessively cold. Not till after the collision could it support any kind
of life known to man.</p>
<p>How these difficulties were overcome I have no time to tell, though the
story of man's attack upon his final home is well worthy of recording, Nor can
I tell in detail of the conflict of policy which now occurred, Some, realizing
that the Eighth Men themselves could never live on Neptune, advocated an orgy
of pleasure-living till the end, But at length the race excelled itself in an
almost unanimous resolve to devote its remaining centuries to the production of
a human being capable of carrying the torch of mentality into a new world.</p>
<p>Ether-vessels were able to reach that remote world and set up chemical
changes for the improvement of the atmosphere. It was also possible, by means
of the lately rediscovered process of automatic annihilation of matter, to
produce a constant supply of energy for the warming of an area where life might
hope to survive until the sun should be rejuvenated.</p>
<p>When at last the time for migration was approaching, a specially designed
vegetation was shipped to Neptune and established in the warm area to fit it
for man's use. Animals, it was decided, would be unnecessary. Subsequently a
specially designed human species, the Ninth Men, was transported to man's new
home. The giant Eighth Men could not themselves inhabit Neptune. The trouble
was not merely that they could scarcely support their own weight, let alone
walk, but that the atmospheric pressure on Neptune was unendurable. For the
great planet bore a gaseous envelope thousands of miles deep. The solid globe
was scarcely more than the yolk of a huge egg. The mass of the air itself
combined with the mass of the solid to produce a gravitational pressure greater
than that upon the Venerian ocean floor. The Eighth Men, therefore, dared not
emerge from their ether-ships to tread the surface of the planet save for brief
spells in steel diving suits, For them there was nothing else to do but to
return to the archipelagos of Venus, and make the best of life until the end.
They were not spared for long. A few centuries after the settlement of Neptune
had been completed by transferring thither all the most precious material
relics of humanity, the great planet itself narrowly missed collision with the
dark stranger from space. Uranus and Jupiter were at the time well out of its
track. Not so Saturn, which, a few years after Neptune's escape, was engulfed
with all its rings and satellites. The sudden incandescence which resulted from
this minor collision was but a prelude. The huge foreigner rushed on. Like a
finger poked into a spider's web, it tangled up the planetary orbits. Having
devoured its way through the asteroids, it missed Mars, caught Earth and Venus
in its blazing hair, and leapt at the sun. Henceforth the centre of the solar
system was a star nearly as wide as the old orbit of Mercury, and the system
was transformed.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER XIV. NEPTUNE</h3>
<p><b>1. BIRD'S-EYE VIEW</b></p>
<p>I have told man's story up to a point about half-way from his origin to his
annihilation, Behind lies the vast span which includes the whole Terrestrial
and Venerian ages, with all their slow fluctuations of darkness and
enlightenment. Ahead lies the Neptunian age, equally long, equally tragic
perhaps, but more diverse, and in its last phase incomparably more brilliant.
It would not be profitable to recount the history of man on Neptune on the
scale of the preceding chronicle. Very much of it would be incomprehensible to
terrestrials, and much of it repeats again and again, in the many Neptunian
modes, themes that we have already observed in the Terrestrial or the Venerian
movements of the human symphony. To appreciate fully the range and subtlety of
the great living epic, we ought, no doubt, to dwell on its every movement with
the same faithful care. But this is impossible to any human mind. We can but
attend to significant phrases, here and there, and hope to capture some
fragmentary hint of its vast intricate form, And for the readers of this book,
who are themselves tremors in the opening bars of the music, it is best that I
should dwell chiefly on things near to them, even at the cost of ignoring much
that is in fact greater.</p>
<p>Before continuing our long flight let us look around us. Hitherto we have
passed over time's fields at a fairly low altitude, making many detailed
observations. Now we shall travel at a greater height and with speed of a new
order. We must therefore orientate ourselves within the wider horizon that
opens around us; we must consider things from the astronomical rather than the
human point of view. I said that we were halfway from man's beginning to his
end, Looking back to that remote beginning we see that the span of time which
includes the whole career of the First Men from Pithecanthropus to the
Patagonian disaster is an unanalysable point. Even the preceding and much
longer period between the first mammal and the first man, some twenty-five
millions of terrestrial years, seems now inconsiderable. The whole of it,
together with the age of the First Men, may be said to lie half-way between the
formation of the planets, two thousand million years earlier, and their final
destruction, two thousand million years later, Taking a still wider view, we
see that this aeon of four thousand million years is itself no more than a
moment in comparison with the sun's age. And before the birth of the sun the
stuff of this galaxy had already endured for aeons as a nebula. Yet even those
aeons look brief in relation to the passage of time before the myriad great
nebula themselves, the future galaxies, condensed out of the all-pervading mist
in the beginning. Thus the whole duration of humanity, with its many sequent
species and its incessant downpour of generations, is but a flash in the
lifetime of the cosmos.</p>
<p>Spatially, also, man is inconceivably minute. If in imagination we reduce
this galaxy of ours to the size of an ancient terrestrial principality, we must
suppose it adrift in the void with millions of other such principalities, very
remote from one another. On the same scale the all-embracing cosmos would bulk
as a sphere whose diameter was some twenty times greater than that of the lunar
orbit in your day; and somewhere within the little wandering asteroid-like
principality which is our own universe, the solar system would be an
ultramicroscopic point, the greatest planet incomparably smaller.</p>
<p>We have watched the fortunes of eight successive human species for a
thousand million years, the first half of that flicker which is the duration of
man. Ten more species now succeed one another, or are contemporary, on the
plains of Neptune. We, the Last Men, are the Eighteenth Men. Of the eight
pre-Neptunian species, some, as we have seen, remained always primitive; many
achieved at least a confused and fleeting civilization, and one, the brilliant
Fifth, was already wakening into true humanity when misfortune crushed it. The
ten Neptunian species show an even greater diversity. They range from the
instinctive animal to modes of consciousness never before attained. The
definitely sub-human degenerate types are confined mostly to the first six
hundred million years of man's sojourn on Neptune. During the earlier half of
this long phase of preparation, man, at first almost crushed out of existence
by a hostile environment, gradually peopled the huge north; but with beasts,
not men. For man, as man, no longer existed. During the latter half of the
preparatory six hundred million years, the human spirit gradually awoke again,
to undergo the fluctuating advance and decline characteristic of the
pre-Neptunian ages. But subsequently, in the last four hundred million years of
his career on Neptune, man has made an almost steady progress toward full
spiritual maturity.</p>
<p>Let us now look rather more closely at these three great epochs of man's
history.</p>
<p><b>2. DA CAPO</b></p>
<p>It was in desperate haste that the last Venerian men had designed and
fashioned the new species for the colonization of Neptune. The mere remoteness
of the great planet, moreover, had prevented its nature from being explored at
all thoroughly, and so the new human organism was but partially adapted to its
destined environment. Inevitably it was a dwarf type, limited in size by the
necessity of resisting an excessive gravitation. Its brain was so cramped that
everything but the bare essentials of humanity had to be omitted from it. Even
so, the Ninth Men were too delicately organized to withstand the ferocity of
natural forces on Neptune. This ferocity the designers had seriously
underestimated; and so they were content merely to produce a miniature copy of
their own type. They should have planned a hardy brute, lustily procreative,
cunning in the struggle for physical existence, but above all tough, prolific,
and so insensitive as to be scarcely worthy of the name man. They should have
trusted that if once this crude seed could take root, natural forces themselves
would in time conjure from it something more human. Instead, they produced a
race cursed with the inevitable fragility of miniatures, and designed for a
civilized environment which feeble spirits could not possibly maintain in a
tumultuous world. For it so happened that the still youthful giant, Neptune,
was slowly entering one of his phases of crustal shrinkage, and therefore of
earthquake and eruption. Thus the frail colonists found themselves increasingly
in danger of being swallowed in sudden fiery crevasses or buried under volcanic
dust, Moreover, their squat buildings, when not actually being trampled by lava
streams, or warped and cracked by their shifting foundations, were liable to be
demolished by the battering-ram thrust of a turbulent and massive atmosphere.
Further, the atmosphere's unwholesome composition killed all possibility of
cheerfulness and courage in a race whose nature was doomed to be, even in
favourable circumstances, neurotic.</p>
<p>Fortunately this agony could not last indefinitely. Little by little,
civilization crumbled into savagery, the torturing vision of better things was
lost, man's consciousness was narrowed and coarsened into brute-consciousness.
By good luck the brute precariously survived.</p>
<p>Long after the Ninth Men had fallen from man's estate, nature herself, in
her own slow and blundering manner, succeeded where man had failed. The brute
descendants of this human species became at length well adapted to their world.
In time there arose a wealth of sub-human forms in the many kinds of
environment afforded by the lands and seas of Neptune. None of them penetrated
far toward the Equator, for the swollen sun had rendered the tropics at this
time far too hot to support life of any kind. Even at the pole the protracted
summer put a great strain on all but the most hardy creatures.</p>
<p>Neptune's year was at this time about one hundred and sixty-five times the
length of the old terrestrial year. The slow seasonal change had an important
effect on life's own rhythms. All but the most ephemeral organisms tended to
live through at least one complete year, and the higher mammals survived
longer. At a much later stage this natural longevity was to play a great and
beneficial part in the revival of man. But, on the other hand, the increasing
sluggishness of individual growth, the length of immaturity in each generation,
retarded the natural evolutionary process on Neptune, so that compared with the
Terrestrial and Venerian epochs the biological story now moves at a snail's
pace.</p>
<p>After the fall of the Ninth Men the sub-human creatures had one and all
adopted a quadruped habit, the better to cope with gravity. At first they had
indulged merely in occasional support from their knuckles, but in time many
species of true quadrupeds had appeared. In several of the running types the
fingers, like the toes, had grown together, and a hoof had developed, not on
the old fingertips, which were bent back and atrophied, but on the
knuckles.</p>
<p>Two hundred million years after the solar collision innumerable species of
sub-human grazers with long sheep-like muzzles, ample molars, and almost
ruminant digestive systems, were competing with one another on the polar
continent. Upon these preyed the sub-human carnivora, of whom some were built
for speed in the chase, others for stalking and a sudden spring. But since
jumping was no easy matter on Neptune, the cat-like types were all minute. They
preyed upon man's more rabbit-like and rat-like descendants, or on the carrion
of the larger mammals, or on the lusty worms and beetles. These had sprung
originally from vermin which had been transported accidentally from Venus. For
of all the ancient Venerian fauna only man himself, a few insects and other
invertebrates, and many kinds of micro-organisms, succeeded in colonizing
Neptune. Of plants, many types had been artificially bred for the new world,
and from these eventually arose a host of grasses, flowering plants,
thick-trunked bushes, and novel sea-weeds. On this marine flora fed certain
highly developed marine worms; and of these last, some in time became
vertebrate, predatory, swift and fish-like. On these in turn man's own marine
descendants preyed, whether as sub-human seals, or still more specialized
subhuman porpoises. Perhaps most remarkable of these developments of the
ancient human stock was that which led, through a small insectivorous bat-like
glider, to a great diversity of true flying mammals, scarcely larger than
humming birds, but in some cases agile as swallows.</p>
<p>Nowhere did the typical human form survive. There were only beasts, fitted
by structure and instinct to some niche or other of their infinitely diverse
and roomy world.</p>
<p>Certainly strange vestiges of human mentality did indeed persist here and
there even as, in the fore-limbs of most species, there still remained buried
the relics of man's once cunning fingers. For instance, there were certain
grazers which in times of hardship would meet together and give tongue in
cacophonous ululation; or, sitting on their haunches with forelimbs pressed
together, they would listen by the hour to the howls of some leader, responding
intermittently with groans and whimpers, and working themselves at last into
foaming madness. And there were carnivora which, in the midst of the
spring-time fervour, would suddenly cease from love-making, fighting, and the
daily routine of hunting, to sit alone in some high place day after day, night
after night, watching, waiting; until at last hunger forced them into
action.</p>
<p>Now in the fullness of time, about three hundred million terrestrial years
after the solar collision, a certain minute, hairless, rabbit-like creature,
scampering on the polar grasslands, found itself greatly persecuted by a swift
hound from the south, The sub-human rabbit was relatively unspecialized, and
had no effective means of defence or flight. It was almost exterminated. A few
individuals, however, saved themselves by taking to the dense and thick-trunked
scrub, whither the hound could not follow them. Here they had to change their
diet and manner of life, deserting grass for roots, berries, and even worms and
beetles. Their fore-limbs were now increasingly used for digging and climbing,
and eventually for weaving nests of stick and straw. In this species the
fingers had never grown together. Internally the fore-paw was like a minute
clenched fist from the elongated and exposed knuckles of which separate toes
protruded. And now the knuckles elongated themselves still further, becoming in
time a new set of fingers. Within the palm of the new little monkey-hand there
still remained traces of man's ancient fingers, bent in upon themselves.</p>
<p>As of old, manipulation gave rise to clearer percipience. And this, in
conjunction with the necessity of frequent experiments in diet, hunting, and
defence, produced at length a real versatility of behaviour and suppleness of
mind. The rabbit throve, adopted an almost upright gait, continued to increase
in stature and in brain. Yet, just as the new hand was not merely a
resurrection of the old hand, so the new regions of the brain were no mere
revival of the atrophied human cerebrum, but a new organ, which overlaid and
swallowed up that ancient relic. The creature's mind, therefore, was in many
respects a new mind, though moulded to the same great basic needs. Like his
forerunners, of course, he craved food, love, glory, companionship. In pursuit
of these ends he devised weapons and traps, and built wicker villages. He held
pow-wows. He became the Tenth Men.</p>
<p><b>3. SLOW CONQUEST</b></p>
<p>For a million terrestrial years these long-armed hairless beings were
spreading their wicker huts and bone implements over the great northern
continents, and for many more millions they remained in possession without
making further cultural progress; for evolution, both biological and cultural,
was indeed slow on Neptune. At last the Tenth Men were attacked by a
microorganism and demolished. From their ruins several primitive human species
developed, and remained isolated in remote territories for millions of decades,
until at length chance or enterprise brought them into contact. One of these
early species, crouched and tusked, was persistently trapped for its ivory by
an abler type, till it was exterminated. Another, long of muzzle and large of
base, habitually squatted on its haunches like the kangaroo. Shortly after this
industrious and social species had discovered the use of the wheel, a more
primitive but more war-like type crashed into it like a tidal wave and
overwhelmed it. Erect, but literally almost as broad as they were tall, these
chunkish and bloody-minded savages spread over the whole arctic and sub-arctic
region and spent some millions of years in monotonous reiteration of progress
and decline; until at last a slow decay of their germ-plasm almost ended man's
career. But after an aeon of darkness, there appeared another thick-set, but
larger brained, species. This, for the first time on Neptune, conceived the
religion of love, and all those spiritual cravings and agonies which had
flickered in man so often and so vainly upon Earth and Venus. There appeared
again feudal empires, militant nations, economic class wars, and, not once but
often, a world-state covering the whole northern hemisphere. These men it was
that first crossed the equator in artificially cooled electric ships, and
explored the huge south. No life of any kind was discovered in the southern
hemisphere; for even in that age no living matter could have crossed the
roasting tropics without artificial refrigeration. Indeed, it was only because
the sun's temporary revival had already passed its zenith that even man, with
all his ingenuity, could endure a long tropical voyage.</p>
<p>Like the First Men and so many other natural human types, these Fourteenth
Men were imperfectly human. Like the First Men, they conceived ideals of
conduct which their imperfectly organized nervous systems could never attain
and seldom approach. Unlike the First Men, they survived with but minor
biological changes for three hundred million years. But even so long a period
did not enable them to transcend their imperfect spiritual nature. Again and
again and again they passed from savagery to world-civilization and back to
savagery. They were captive within their own nature, as a bird in a cage. And
as a caged bird may fumble with nest-building materials and periodically
destroy the fruit of its aimless toil, so these cramped beings destroyed their
civilizations.</p>
<p>At length, however, this second phase of Neptunian history, this era of
fluctuation, was brought to an end. At the close of the six hundred million
years after the first settlement of the planet, unaided nature produced, in the
fifteenth human species, that highest form of natural man which she had
produced only once before, in the second species. And this time no Martians
interfered, We must not stay to watch the struggle of this great-headed man to
overcome his one serious handicap, excessive weight of cranium and unwieldy
proportions of body. Suffice it that after a long-drawn-out immaturity,
including one great mechanized war between the northern and southern
hemispheres, the Fifteenth Men outgrew the ailments and fantasies of youth, and
consolidated themselves as a single world-community. This civilization was
based economically on volcanic power, and spiritually on devotion to the
fulfillment of human capacity. It was this species which, for the first time on
Neptune, conceived, as an enduring racial purpose, the will to remake human
nature upon an ampler scale.</p>
<p>Henceforth in spite of many disasters, such as another period of earthquake
and eruption, sudden climatic changes, innumerable plagues and biological
aberrations, human progress was relatively steady. It was not by any means
swift and sure. There were still to be ages, often longer than the whole career
of the First Men, in which the human spirit would rest from its pioneering to
consolidate its conquests, or would actually stray into the wilderness. But
never again, seemingly, was it to be routed and crushed into mere
animality.</p>
<p>In tracing man's final advance to full humanity we can observe only the
broadest features of a whole astronomical era. But in fact it is an era crowded
with many thousands of long-lived generations. Myriads of individuals, each one
unique, live out their lives in rapt intercourse with one another, contribute
their heart's pulses to the universal music, and presently vanish, giving place
to others. All this age-long sequence of private living, which is the actual
tissue of humanity's flesh, I cannot describe. I can only trace, as it were,
the disembodied form of its growth.</p>
<p>The Fifteenth Men first set themselves to abolish five great evils, namely,
disease, suffocating toil, senility, misunderstanding, ill-will. The story of
their devotion, their many disastrous experiments and ultimate triumph, cannot
here be told. Nor can I recount how they learned and used the secret of
deriving power from the annihilation of matter, nor how they invented ether
ships for the exploration of neighbouring planets, nor how, after ages of
experiments, they designed and produced a new species, the Sixteenth, to
supersede themselves.</p>
<p>The new type was analogous to the ancient Fifth, which had colonized Venus.
Artificial rigid atoms had been introduced into its bone-tissues, so that it
might support great stature and an ample brain; in which, moreover, an
exceptionally fine-grained cellular structure permitted a new complexity of
organization. "Telepathy," also, was once more achieved, not by means of the
Martian units, which had long ago become extinct, but by the synthesis of new
molecular groups of a similar type. Partly through the immense increase of
mutual understanding, which resulted from "telepathic" <i>rapport</i>, partly
through improved co-ordination of the nervous system, the ancient evil of
selfishness was entirely and finally abolished from the normal human being.
Egoistic impulses, whenever they refused to be subordinated, were henceforth
classed as symptoms of insanity. The sensory powers of the new species were, of
course, greatly improved; and it was even given a pair of eyes in the back of
the head. Henceforth man was to have a circular instead of a semicircular field
of vision. And such was the general intelligence of the new race that many
problems formerly deemed insoluble were now solved in a single flash of
insight.</p>
<p>Of the great practical uses to which the Sixteenth Men put their powers, one
only need be mentioned as an example. They gained control of the movement of
their planet. Early in their career they were able, with the unlimited energy
at their disposal, to direct it into a wider orbit, so that its average climate
became more temperate, and snow occasionally covered the polar regions. But as
the ages advanced, and the sun became steadily less ferocious, it became
necessary to reverse this process and shift the planet gradually nearer to the
sun.</p>
<p>When they had possessed their world for nearly fifty million years, the
Sixteenth Men, like the Fifth before them, learned to enter into past minds,
For them this was a more exciting adventure than for their forerunners, since
they were still ignorant of Terrestrial and Venerian history. Like their
forerunners, so dismayed were they at the huge volume of eternal misery in the
past, that for a while, in spite of their own great blessings and spontaneous
gaiety, existence seemed a mockery. But in time they came to regard the past's
misery as a challenge. They told themselves that the past was calling to them
for help, and that somehow they must prepare a great "crusade to liberate the
past." How this was to be done, they could not conceive; but they were
determined to bear in mind this quixotic aim in the great enterprise which had
by now become the chief concern of the race, namely the creation of a human
type of an altogether higher order.</p>
<p>It had become clear that man had by now advanced in understanding and
creativeness as far as was possible to the individual human brain acting in
physical isolation. Yet the Sixteenth Men were oppressed by their own
impotence. Though in philosophy they had delved further than had ever before
been possible, yet even at their deepest they found only the shifting sands of
mystery. In particular they were haunted by three ancient problems, two of
which were purely intellectual, namely the mystery of time and the mystery of
mind's relation to the world. Their third problem was the need somehow to
reconcile their confirmed loyalty to life, which they conceived as embattled
against death, with their ever-strengthening impulse to rise above the battle
and admire it dispassionately.</p>
<p>Age after age the races of the Sixteenth Men blossomed with culture after
culture. The movement of thought ranged again and again through all the
possible modes of the spirit, ever discovering new significance in ancient
themes. Yet throughout this epoch the three great problems remained unsolved,
perplexing the individual and vitiating the policy of the race.</p>
<p>Forced thus at length to choose between spiritual stagnation and a perilous
leap in the dark, the Sixteenth Men determined to set about devising a type of
brain which, by means of the mental fusion of many individuals, might waken
into an altogether new mode of consciousness. Thus, it was hoped, man might
gain insight into the very heart of existence, whether finally to admire or
loathe. And thus the racial purpose, which had been so much confused by
philosophical ignorance, might at last become clear.</p>
<p>Of the hundred million years which passed before the Sixteenth Men produced
the new human type, I must not pause to tell, They thought they had achieved
their hearts' desire; but in fact the glorious beings which they had produced
were tortured by subtle imperfections beyond their makers' comprehension.
Consequently, no sooner had these Seventeenth Men peopled the world and
attained full cultural stature, than they also bent all their strength to the
production of a new type, essentially like their own, but perfected. Thus after
a brief career of a few hundred thousand years, crowded with splendour and
agony, the Seventeenth gave place to the Eighteenth, and, as it turns out, the
Last, human species. Since all the earlier cultures find their fulfillment in
the world of the Last Men, I pass over them to enlarge somewhat upon our modern
age.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER XV. THE LAST MEN</h3>
<p><b>1. INTRODUCTION TO THE LAST HUMAN SPECIES</b></p>
<p>If one of the First Men could enter the world of the Last Men, he would find
many things familiar and much that would seem strangely distorted and perverse.
But nearly everything that is most distinctive of the last human species would
escape him. Unless he were to be told that behind all the obvious and imposing
features of civilization, behind all the social organization and personal
intercourse of a great community, lay a whole other world of spiritual culture,
round about him, yet beyond his ken, he would no more suspect its existence
than a cat in London suspects the existence of finance or literature.</p>
<p>Among the familiar things that he would encounter would be creatures
recognizably human yet in his view grotesque. While he himself laboured under
the weight of his own body, these giants would be easily striding. He would
consider them very sturdy, often thick-set, folk, but he would be compelled to
allow them grace of movement and even beauty of proportion. The longer he
stayed with them the more beauty he would see in them, and the less
complacently would he regard his own type. Some of these fantastic men and
women he would find covered with fur, hirsute, or mole-velvet, revealing the
underlying muscles. Others would display brown, yellow or ruddy skin, and yet
others a translucent ash-green, warmed by the under-flowing blood, As a
species, though we are all human, we are extremely variable in body and mind,
so variable that superficially we seem to be not one species but many. Some
characters, of course, are common to all of us, The traveller might perhaps be
surprised by the large yet sensitive hands which are universal, both in men and
women. In all of us the outermost finger bears at its tip three minute organs
of manipulation, rather similar to those which were first devised for the Fifth
Men, These excrescences would doubtless revolt our visitor. The pair of
occipital eyes, too, would shock him; so would the upward-looking astronomical
eye on the crown, which is peculiar to the Last Men, This organ was so
cunningly designed that, when fully extended, about a hand-breadth from its
bony case, it reveals the heavens in as much detail as your smaller
astronomical telescopes. Apart from such special features as these, there is
nothing definitely novel about us; though every limb, every contour, shows
unmistakably that much has happened since the days of the First Men. We are
both more human and more animal. The primitive explorer might be more readily
impressed by our animality than our humanity, so much of our humanity would lie
beyond his grasp. He would perhaps at first regard us as a degraded type. He
would call us faun-like, and in particular cases, ape-like, bear-like, ox-like,
marsupial, or elephantine. Yet our general proportions are definitely human in
the ancient manner. Where gravity is not insurmountable, the erect biped form
is bound to be most serviceable to intelligent land animals; and so, after long
wanderings, man has returned to his old shape. Moreover, if our observer were
himself at all sensitive to facial expression, he would come to recognize in
every one of our innumerable physiognomic types an indescribable but
distinctively human look, the visible sign of that inward and spiritual grace
which is not wholly absent from his own species. He would perhaps say, "These
men that are beasts are surely gods also." He would be reminded of those old
Egyptian deities with animal heads. But in us the animal and the human
interpenetrate in every feature, in every curve of the body, and with infinite
variety. He would observe us, together with hints of the long-extinct Mongol,
Negro, Nordic, and Semetic, many outlandish features and expressions, deriving
from the sub-human period on Neptune, or from Venus. He would see in every limb
unfamiliar contours of muscle, sinew or bone, which were acquired long after
the First Men had vanished, Besides the familiar eye-colours, he would discover
orbs of topaz, emerald, amethyst and ruby, and a thousand varieties of these,
But in all of us he would see also, if he had discernment, a facial expression
and bodily gesture peculiar to our own species, a certain luminous, yet pungent
and ironical significance, which we miss almost wholly in the earlier human
faces.</p>
<p>The traveller would recognize among us unmistakable sexual features, both of
general proportions and special organs. But it would take him long to discover
that some of the most striking bodily and facial differences were due to
differentiation of the two ancient sexes into many sub-sexes. Full sexual
experience involves for us a complicated relationship between individuals of
all these types. Of the extremely important sexual groups I shall speak
again.</p>
<p>Our visitor would notice, by the way, that though all persons on Neptune go
habitually nude, save for a pouch or rucksack, clothing, often brightly
coloured, and made of diverse lustrous or homely tissues unknown before our
time, is worn for special purposes.</p>
<p>He would notice also, scattered about the green countryside, many buildings,
mostly of one story; for there is plenty of room on Neptune even for the
million million of the Last Men. Here and there, however, we have great
architectural pylons, cruciform or star-shaped in section, cloud-piercing,
dignifying the invariable planes of Neptune. These mightiest of all buildings,
which are constructed in adamantine materials formed of artificial atoms, would
seem to our visitor geometrical mountains, far taller than any natural mountain
could be, even on the smallest planet. In many cases the whole fabric is
translucent or transparent, so that at night, with internal illumination, it
appears as an edifice of light. Springing from a base twenty or more miles
across, the star-seeking towers attain a height where even Neptune's atmosphere
is somewhat attenuated. In their summits work the hosts of our astronomers, the
essential eyes through which our community, on her little raft, peers across
the ocean. Thither also all men and women repair at one time or another to
contemplate this galaxy of ours and the unnumbered remoter universes, There
they perform together those supreme symbolic acts for which I find no adjective
in your speech but the debased word "religious." There also they seek the
refreshment of mountain air in a world where natural mountains are unknown. And
on the pinnacles and precipices of these loftiest horns many of us gratify that
primeval lust of climbing which was ingrained in man before ever he was man,
These buildings thus combine the functions of observatory, temple, sanatorium
and gymnasium. Some of them are almost as old as the species, some are not yet
completed. They embody, therefore, many styles. The traveller would find modes
which he would be tempted to call Gothic, Classical, Egyptian, Peruvian,
Chinese, or American, besides a thousand architectural ideas unfamiliar to him.
Each of these buildings was the work of the race as a whole at some stage in
its career. None of them is a mere local product. Every successive culture has
expressed itself in one or more of these supreme monuments. Once in forty
thousand years or so some new architectural glory would be conceived and
executed, And such is the continuity of our cultures that there has scarcely
ever been need to remove the handiwork of the past.</p>
<p>If our visitor happened to be near enough to one of these great pylons, he
would see it surrounded by a swarm of midges, which would turn out to be human
fliers, wingless, but with outspread arms, The stranger might wonder how a
large organism could rise from the ground in Neptune's powerful field of
gravity. Yet flight is our ordinary means of locomotion. A man has but to put
on a suit of overalls fitted at various points with radiation-generators.
Ordinary flight thus becomes a kind of aerial swimming. Only when very high
speed is desired do we make use of closed-in air-boats and liners.</p>
<p>At the feet of the great buildings the flat or undulating country is green,
brown, golden, and strewn with houses, Our traveller would recognize that much
land was under cultivation, and would see many persons at work upon it with
tools or machinery. Most of our food, indeed, is produced by artificial
photosynthesis on the broiling planet Jupiter, where even now that the sun is
becoming normal again, no life can exist without powerful refrigeration. As far
as mere nutrition is concerned, we could do without vegetation; but agriculture
and its products have played so great a part in human history that today
agricultural operations and vegetable foods are very beneficial to the race
psychologically. And so it comes about that vegetable matter is in great
demand, not only as raw material for innumerable manufactures, but also for
table delicacies. Green vegetables, fruit, and various alcoholic fruit drinks
have come to have the same kind of ritual significance for us as wine has for
you. Meat also, though not a part of ordinary diet, is eaten on very rare and
sacred occasions, The cherished wild fauna of the planet contributes its toll
to periodic symbolical banquets. And whenever a human being has chosen to die,
his body is ceremoniously eaten by his friends.</p>
<p>Communication with the food factories of Jupiter and the agricultural polar
regions of the less torrid Uranus, as also with the automatic mining stations
on the glacial outer planets, is maintained by ether ships, which, travelling
much faster than the planets themselves, make the passage to the neighbour
worlds in a small fraction of the Neptunian year. These vessels, of which the
smallest are about a mile in length, may be seen descending on our oceans like
ducks, Before they touch the water they cause a prodigious tumult with the
downward pressure of their radiation; but once upon the surface, they pass
quietly into harbour.</p>
<p>The ether ship is in a manner symbolic of our whole community, so highly
organized is it, and so minute in relation to the void which engulfs it. The
ethereal navigators, because they spend so much of their time in the empty
regions, beyond the range of "telepathic" communication and sometimes even of
mechanical radio, form mentally a unique class among us. They are a hardy,
simple, and modest folk, And though they embody man's proud mastery of the
ether, they are never tired of reminding landlubbers, with dour jocularity,
that the most daring voyages are confined within one drop of the boundless
ocean of space.</p>
<p>Recently an exploration ship returned from a voyage into the outer tracts.
Half her crew had died. The survivors were emaciated, diseased, and mentally
unbalanced. To a race that thought itself so well established in sanity that
nothing could disturb it, the spectacle of these unfortunates was instructive.
Throughout the voyage, which was the longest ever attempted, they had
encountered nothing whatever but two comets, and an occasional meteor. Some of
the nearer constellations were seen with altered forms. One or two stars
increased slightly in brightness; and the sun was reduced to being the most
brilliant of stars. The aloof and changeless presence of the constellations
seems to have crazed the voyagers. When at last the ship returned and berthed,
there was a scene such as is seldom witnessed in our modern world. The crew
flung open the ports and staggered blubbering into the arms of the crowd. It
would never have been believed that members of our species could be so far
reduced from the self-possession that is normal to us. Subsequently these poor
human wrecks have shown an irrational phobia of the stars, and of all that is
not human. They dare not go out at night. They live in an extravagant passion
for the presence of others. And since all others are astronomically minded,
they cannot find real companionship. They insanely refuse to participate in the
mental life of the race upon the plane where all things are seen in their just
proportions. They cling piteously to the sweets of individual life; and so they
are led to curse the immensities. They fill their minds with human conceits,
and their houses with toys. By night they draw the curtains and drown the quiet
voice of the stars in revelry. But it is a joyless and a haunted revelry,
desired less for itself than as a defence against reality.</p>
<p><b>2. CHILDHOOD AND MATURITY</b></p>
<p>I said that we were all astronomically minded; but we are not without
"human" interests. Our visitor from the earth would soon discover that the low
buildings, sprinkled on all sides, were the homes of individuals, families,
sexual groups, and bands of companions. Most of these buildings are so
constructed that the roof and walls can be removed, completely or partially,
for sun-bathing and for the night. Round each house is a wilderness, or a
garden, or an orchard of our sturdy fruit trees. Here and there men and women
may be seen at work with hoe or spade or secateurs. The buildings themselves
affect many styles; and within doors our visitor would find great variety from
house to house. Even within a single house he might come on rooms seemingly of
different epochs. And while some rooms are crowded with articles, many of which
would be incomprehensible to the stranger, others are bare, save for a table,
chairs, a cupboard, and perhaps some single object of pure art. We have an
immense variety of manufactured goods. But the visitor from a world obsessed
with material wealth would probably remark the simplicity, even austerity,
which characterizes most private houses.</p>
<p>He would doubtless be surprised to see no books. In every room, however,
there is a cupboard filled with minute rolls of tape, microscopically figured.
Each of these rolls contains matter which could not be cramped into a score of
your volumes. They are used in connexion with a pocket-instrument, the size and
shape of the ancient cigarette case. When the roll is inserted, it reels itself
off at any desired speed, and interferes systematically with ethereal
vibrations produced by the instrument. Thus is generated a very complex flow of
"telepathic" language which permeates the brain of the reader. So delicate and
direct is this medium of expression that there is scarcely any possibility of
misunderstanding the author's intention. The rolls themselves, it should be
said, are produced by another special instrument, which is sensitive to
vibrations generated in the author's brain. Not that it produces a mere replica
of his stream of consciousness; it records only those images and ideas with
which he deliberately "inscribes" it. I may mention also that, since we can at
any moment communicate by direct "telepathy" with any person on the planet,
these "books" of ours are not used for the publication of merely ephemeral
thought. Each one of them preserves only the threshed and chosen grains of some
mind's harvest.</p>
<p>Other instruments may be observed in our houses, which I cannot pause to
describe, instruments whose office is either to carry out domestic drudgery, or
to minister directly in one way or another to cultured life. Near the outer
door would be hanging a number of flying-suits, and in a garage attached to the
house would be the private air-boats, gaily coloured torpedo-shaped objects of
various sizes.</p>
<p>Decoration in our houses, save in those which belong to children, is
everywhere simple, even severe. None the less we prize it greatly, and spend
much consideration upon it. Children, indeed, often adorn their houses with
splendour, which adults themselves can also enjoy through children's eyes, even
as they can enter into the frolics of infants with unaffected glee.</p>
<p>The number of children in our world is small in relation to our immense
population. Yet, seeing that every one of us is potentially immortal, it may be
wondered how we can permit ourselves to have any children at all. The
explanation is two-fold. In the first place, our policy is to produce new
individuals of higher type than ourselves, for we are very far from
biologically perfect. Consequently we need a continuous supply of children. And
as these successively reach maturity, they take over the functions of adults
whose nature is less perfect; and these, when they are aware that they are no
longer of service, elect to retire from life.</p>
<p>But even though every individual, sooner or later, ceases to exist, the
average length of life is not much less than a quarter of a million terrestrial
years. No wonder, then, that we cannot accommodate many children. But we have
more than might be expected, for with us infancy and adolescence are very
lengthy. The foetus is carried for twenty years. Ectogenesis was practised by
our predecessors, but was abandoned by our own species, because, with greatly
improved motherhood, there is no need for it. Our mothers, indeed, are both
physically and mentally most vigorous during the all too rare period of
pregnancy. After birth, true infancy lasts for about a century. During this
period, in which the foundations of body and mind are being laid, very slowly,
but so securely that they will never fail, the individual is cared for by his
mother. Then follow some centuries of childhood, and a thousand years of
adolescence.</p>
<p>Our children, of course, are very different beings from the children of the
First Men. Though physically they are in many respects still childlike, they
are independent persons in the community. Each has either a house of his own,
or rooms in a larger building held in common by himself and his friends.
Thousands of these are to be found in the neighbourhood of every educational
centre. There are some children who prefer to live with their parents, or with
one or other of their parents; but this is rare. Though there is often much
friendly intercourse between parents and children, the generations usually fare
better under separate roofs. This is inevitable in our species. For the adult's
overwhelmingly greater experience reveals the world to him in very different
proportions from those which alone are possible even to the most brilliant of
children; while on the other hand with us the mind of every child is, in some
potentiality or other, definitely superior to every adult mind. Consequently,
while the child can never appreciate what is best in his elders, the adult, in
spite of his power of direct insight into all minds not superior to himself, is
doomed to incomprehension of all that is novel in his own offspring.</p>
<p>Six or seven hundred years after birth a child is in some respects
physically equivalent to a ten-year-old of the First Men. But since his brain
is destined for much higher development, it is already far more complex than
any adult brain of that species. And though temperamentally he is in many ways
still a child, intellectually he has already in some respects passed beyond the
culture of the best adult minds of the ancient races. The traveller,
encountering one of our bright boys, might sometimes be reminded of the wise
simplicity of the legendary Child Christ. But also he might equally well
discover a vast exuberance, boisterousness, impishness, and a complete
inability to stand outside the child's own eager life and regard it
dispassionately. In general our children develop intellectually beyond the
level of the First Men long before they begin to develop the dispassionate will
which is characteristic of our adults. When there is conflict between a child's
personal needs and the needs of society, he will as a rule force himself to the
social course; but he does so with resentment and dramatic self-pity, thereby
rendering himself in the adult view exquisitely ridiculous.</p>
<p>When our children attain physical adolescence, nearly a thousand years after
birth, they leave the safe paths of childhood to spend another thousand years
in one of the antarctic continents, known as the Land of the Young. Somewhat
reminiscent of the Wild Continent of the Fifth Men, this territory is preserved
as virgin bush and prairie. Sub-human grazers and carnivora abound. Volcanic
eruption, hurricanes and glacial seasons afford further attractions to the
adventurous young. There is consequently a high death-rate. In this land our
young people live the half primitive, half sophisticated life to which their
nature is fitted. They hunt, fish, tend cattle and till the ground. They
cultivate all the simple beauties of human individuality. They love and hate.
They sing, paint, and carve. They devise heroic myths, and delight in fantasies
of direct intercourse with a cosmic person. They organize themselves as tribes
and nations. Sometimes they even indulge in warfare of a primitive but bloody
type. Formerly when this happened, the adult world interfered; but we have
since learned to let the fever run its course. The loss of life is regrettable;
but it is a small price to pay for the insight afforded even by this restricted
and juvenile warfare, into those primitive agonies and passions which, when
they are experienced by the adult mind, are so transformed by philosophy that
their import is wholly changed. In the Land of the Young our boys and girls
experience all that is precious and all that is abject in the primitive. They
live through in their own persons, century by century, all its toilsomeness and
cramped meanness, all its blind cruelty and precariousness; but also they taste
its glamour, its vernal and lyrical glory. They make in little all the mistakes
of thought and action that men have ever made; but at last they emerge ready
for the larger and more difficult world of maturity.</p>
<p>It was expected that some day, when we should have perfected the species,
there would be no need to build up successive generations, no need of children,
no need of all this schooling. It was expected that the community would then
consist of adults only; and that they would be immortal not merely potentially
but in fact, yet also, of course, perennially in the flower of young maturity.
Thus, death should never cut the string of individuality and scatter the
hard-won pearls, necessitating new strings, and laborious re-gatherings. The
many and very delectable beauties of childhood could still be amply enjoyed in
exploration of the past.</p>
<p>We know now that this goal is not to be attained, since man's end is
imminent.</p>
<p><b>3. A RACIAL AWAKENING</b></p>
<p>It is easy to speak of children; but how can I tell you anything significant
of our adult experience, in relation to which not only the world of the First
Men but the worlds of the most developed earlier species seem so
na&iuml;ve?</p>
<p>The source of the immense difference between ourselves and all other human
races lies in the sexual group, which is in fact much more than a sexual
group.</p>
<p>The designers of our species set out to produce a being that might be
capable of an order of mentality higher than their own. The only possibility of
doing so lay in planning a great increase of brain organization. But they knew
that the brain of an individual human being could not safely be allowed to
exceed a certain weight. They therefore sought to produce the new order of
mentality in a system of distinct and specialized brains held in "telepathic"
unity by means of ethereal radiation. Material brains were to be capable of
becoming on some occasions mere nodes in a system of radiation which itself
should then constitute the physical basis of a single mind. Hitherto there had
been "telepathic" communication between many individuals, but no
super-individual, or group-mind. It was known that such a unity of individual
minds had never been attained before, save on Mars; and it was known how
lamentably the racial mind of Mars had failed to transcend the minds of the
Martians. By a combination of shrewdness and good luck the designers hit upon a
policy which escaped the Martian failure. They planned as the basis of the
super-individual a small multi-sexual group.</p>
<p>Of course the mental unity of the sexual group is not the direct outcome of
the sexual intercourse of its members. Such intercourse does occur. Groups
differ from one another very greatly in this respect; but in most groups all
the members of the male sexes have intercourse with all the members of the
female sexes. Thus sex is with us essentially social. It is impossible for me
to give any idea of the great range and intensity of experience afforded by
these diverse types of union. Apart from this emotional enrichment of the
individuals, the importance of sexual activity in the group lies in its
bringing individuals into that extreme intimacy, temperamental harmony and
complementariness, without which no emergence into higher experience would be
possible.</p>
<p>Individuals are not necessarily confined to the same group for ever. Little
by little a group may change every one of its ninety-six members, and yet it
will remain the same super-individual mind, though enriched with the memories
grafted into it by the new-comers. Very rarely does an individual leave a group
before he has been in it for ten thousand years. In some groups the members
live together in a common home. In others they live apart. Sometimes an
individual will form a sort of monogamous relation with another individual of
his group, homing with the chosen one for many thousands of years, or even for
a lifetime. Indeed some claim that lifelong monogamy is the ideal state, so
deep and delicate is the intimacy which it affords. But of course, even in
monogamy, each partner must be periodically refreshed by intercourse with other
members of the group, not only for the spiritual health of the two partners
themselves, but also that the group-mind may be maintained in full vigour.
Whatever the sexual custom of the group, there is always in the mind of each
member a very special loyalty toward the whole group, a peculiar sexually toned
<i>esprit de corps</i>, unparalleled in any other species.</p>
<p>Occasionally there is a special kind of group intercourse in which, during
the actual occurrence of group mentality, all the members of one group will
have intercourse with those of another. Casual intercourse outside the group is
not common, but not discouraged. When it occurs it comes as a symbolic act
crowning a spiritual intimacy.</p>
<p>Unlike the physical sex-relationship, the mental unity of the group involves
all the members of the group every time it occurs, and so long as it persists.
During times of group experience the individual continues to perform his
ordinary routine of work and recreation, save when some particular activity is
demanded of him by the group-mind itself. But all that he does as a private
individual is carried out in a profound absent-mindedness. In familiar
situations he reacts correctly, even to the extent of executing familiar types
of intellectual work or entertaining acquaintances with intelligent
conversation. Yet all the while he is in fact "far away," rapt in the process
of the group-mind. Nothing short of an urgent and unfamiliar crisis can recall
him; and in recalling him it usually puts an end to the group's experience.</p>
<p>Each member of the group is fundamentally just a highly developed human
animal. He enjoys his food. He has a quick eye for sexual attraction, within or
without the group. He has his personal idiosyncrasies and foibles, and is
pleased to ridicule the foibles of others--and of himself. He may be one of
those who abhor children, or one of those who enter into children's antics with
fervour, if they will tolerate him. He may move heaven and earth to procure
permission for a holiday in the Land of the Young. And if he fails, as he
almost surely does, he may go walking with a friend, or boating and swimming,
or playing violent games. Or he may merely potter in his garden, or refresh his
mind though not his body by exploring some favourite region of the past.
Recreation occupies a large part of his life. For this reason he is always glad
to get back to work in due season, whether his function is to maintain some
part of the material organization of our world, or to educate, or to perform
scientific research, or to co-operate in the endless artistic venture of the
race, or, as is more likely, to help in some of those innumerable enterprises
whose nature it is impossible for me to describe.</p>
<p>As a human individual, then, he or she is somewhat of the same type as a
member of the Fifth species. Here once more is the perfected glandular outfit
and instinctive nature. Here too is the highly developed sense perception and
intellection. As in the Fifth species, so in the Eighteenth, each individual
has his own private needs, which he heartily craves to fulfil; but also, in
both species, he subordinates these private cravings to the good of the race
absolutely and without struggle. The only kind of conflict which ever occurs
between individuals is, not the irreconcilable conflict of wills, but the
conflict due to misunderstanding, to imperfect knowledge of the matter under
dispute; and this can always be abolished by patient telepathic
explication.</p>
<p>In addition to the brain organization necessary to this perfection of
Individual human nature, each member of a sexual group has in his own brain a
special organ which, useless by itself, can co-operate "telepathically" with
the special organs of other members of the group to produce a single
electro-magnetic system, the physical basis of the group-mind. In each sub-sex
this organ has a peculiar form and function; and only by the simultaneous
operation of the whole ninety-six does the group attain unified mental life.
These organs do not merely enable each member to share the experience of all;
for this is already provided in the sensitivity to radiation which is
characteristic of all brain-tissue in our species. By means of the harmonious
activity of the special organs a true group-mind emerges, with experience far
beyond the range of the individuals in isolation.</p>
<p>This would not be possible did not the temperament and capacity of each
sub-sex differ appropriately from those of the others. I can only hint at these
differences by analogy. Among the First Men there are many temperamental types
whose essential natures the psychologists of that species never fully analysed.
I may mention, however, as superficial designations of these types, the
meditative, the active, the mystical, the intellectual, the artistic, the
theoretical, the concrete, the placid, the highly-strung. Now our sub-sexes
differ from one another temperamentally in some such manners as these, but with
a far greater range and diversity. These differences of temperament are
utilized for the enrichment of a group self, such as could never have been
attained by the First Men, even if they had been capable of "telepathic"
communication and electro-magnetic unity; for they had not the range of
specialized brain form.</p>
<p>For all the daily business of life, then, each of us is mentally a distinct
individual, though his ordinary means of communication with others is
"telepathic." But frequently he wakes up to be a group-mind. Apart from this
"waking of individuals together," if I may so call it, the group-mind has no
existence; for its being is solely the being of the individuals comprehended
together. When this communal awakening occurs, each individual experiences all
the bodies of the group as "his own multiple body," and perceives the world
equally from all those bodies. This awakening happens to all the individuals at
the same time. But over and above this simple enlargement of the experienced
field, is the awakening into new kinds of experience. Of this obviously, I can
tell you nothing, save that it differs from the lowlier state more radically
than the infant mind differs from the mind of the individual adult, and that it
consists of insight into many unsuspected and previously inconceivable features
of the familiar world of men and things. Hence, in our group mode, most, but
not all, of the perennial philosophical puzzles, especially those connected
with the nature of personality, can be so lucidly restated that they cease to
be puzzles.</p>
<p>Upon this higher plane of mentality the sexual groups, and therefore the
individuals participating in them, have social intercourse with one another as
super-individuals. Thus they form together a community of minded communities.
For each group is a person differing from other groups in character and
experience somewhat as individuals differ. The groups themselves are not
allocated to different works, in such a manner that one group should be wholly
engaged in industry, another in astronomy, and so on. Only the individuals are
thus allocated. In each group there will be members of many professions. The
function of the group itself is purely some special manner of insight and mode
of appreciation; in relation to which, of course, the work of the individuals
is constantly controlled, not only while they are actually supporting the group
self, but also when they have each fallen once more into the limited experience
which is ordinary individual selfhood. For though, as individuals, they cannot
retain clear insight into the high matters which they so recently experienced,
they do remember so much as is not beyond the range of individual mentality;
and in particular they remember the bearing of the group experience upon their
own conduct as individuals.</p>
<p>Recently another and far more penetrating kind of experience has been
attained, partly by good fortune, partly through research directed by the
group-minds. For these have specialized themselves for particular functions in
the mental life of the race, as previously the individuals were specialized for
functions within the mind of a group. Very rarely and precariously has this
supreme experience been achieved. In it the individual passes beyond this group
experience, and becomes the mind of the race. At all times, of course, he can
communicate "telepathically" with other individuals anywhere upon the planet;
and frequently the whole race "listens in" while one individual addresses the
world. But in the true racial experience the situation is different. The system
of radiation which embraces the whole planet, and includes the million million
brains of the race, becomes the physical basis of a racial self. The individual
discovers himself to be embodied in all the bodies of the race. He savours in a
single intuition all bodily contacts, including the mutual embraces of all
lovers. Through the myriad feet of all men and women he enfolds his world in a
single grasp. He sees with all eyes, and comprehends in a single vision all
visual fields. Thus he perceives at once and as a continuous, variegated
sphere, the whole surface of the planet. But not only so. He now stands above
the group-minds as they above the individuals. He regards them as a man may
regard his own vital tissues, with mingled contempt, sympathy, reverence, and
dispassion. He watches them as one might study the living cells of his own
brain; but also with the aloof interest of one observing an ant hill; and yet
again as one enthralled by the strange and diverse ways of his fellow men; and
further as one who, from above the battle, watches himself and his comrades
agonizing in some desperate venture; yet chiefly as the artist who has no
thought but for his vision and its embodiment. In the racial mode a man
apprehends all things astronomically. Through all eyes and all observatories,
he beholds his voyaging world, and peers outward into space. Thus he merges in
one view, as it were, the views of deck-hand, captain, stoker, and the man in
the crow's-nest. Regarding the solar system simultaneously from both limbs of
Neptune, he perceives the planets and the sun stereoscopically, as though in
binocular vision. Further, his perceived "now" embraces not a moment but a vast
age. Thus, observing the galaxy from every point in succession along Neptune's
wide orbit, and watching the nearer stars shift hither and thither, he actually
perceives some of the constellations in three dimensions. Nay, with the aid of
our most recent instruments the whole galaxy appears stereoscopically. But the
great nebulae and remote universes remain mere marks upon the flat sky; and, in
contemplation of their remoteness, man, even as the racial self of the
mightiest of all human races, realizes his own minuteness and impotence.</p>
<p>But chiefly the racial mind transcends the minds of groups and individuals
in philosophical insight into the true nature of space and time, mind and its
objects, cosmical striving and cosmical perfection. Some hints of this great
elucidation must presently be given; but in the main it cannot be communicated.
Indeed such insight is beyond the reach of ourselves as isolated individuals,
and even beyond the group-minds. When we have declined from the racial
mentality, we cannot clearly remember what it was that we experienced.</p>
<p>In particular we have one very perplexing recollection about our racial
experience, one which involves a seeming impossibility. In the racial mind our
experience was enlarged not only spatially but temporally in a very strange
manner. In respect of temporal perception, of course, minds may differ in two
ways, in the length of the span which they can comprehend as "now," and the
minuteness of the successive events which they can discriminate within the
"now." As individuals we can hold within one "now" a duration equal to the old
terrestrial day; and within that duration, we can if we will, discriminate
rapid pulsations such as commonly we hear together as a high musical tone. As
the race-mind we perceived as "now" the whole period since the birth of the
oldest living individuals, and the whole past of the species appeared as
personal memory, stretching back into the mists of infancy. Yet we could, if we
willed, discriminate within the "now" one light-vibration from the next. In
this mere increased breadth and precision of temporal perception there is no
contradiction. But how, we ask ourselves, could the race-mind experience as
"now" a vast period in which it had no existence whatever? Our first experience
of racial mentality lasted only as long as Neptune's moon takes to complete one
circuit. Before that period, then, the race-mind was not. Yet during the month
of its existence it regarded the whole previous career of the race as
"present."</p>
<p>Indeed, the racial experience has greatly perplexed us as individuals, and
we can scarcely be said to remember more of it than that it was of extreme
subtlety and extreme beauty. At the same time we often have of it an impression
of unspeakable horror. We who, in our familiar individual sphere are able to
regard all conceivable tragedy not merely with fortitude but with exultation,
are obscurely conscious that as the racial mind we have looked into an abyss of
evil such as we cannot now conceive, and could not endure to conceive. Yet even
this hell we know to have been acceptable as an organic member in the austere
form of the cosmos. We remember obscurely, and yet with a strange conviction,
that all the age-long striving of the human spirit, no less than the petty
cravings of individuals, was seen as a fair component in something far more
admirable than itself; and that man ultimately defeated, no less than man for a
while triumphant, contributes to this higher excellence.</p>
<p>How colourless these words! How unworthy of that wholly satisfying beauty of
all things, which in our awakened racial mode we see face to face. Every human
being, of whatever species, may occasionally glimpse some fragment or aspect of
existence transfigured thus with the cold beauty which normally he cannot see.
Even the First Men, in their respect for tragic art, had something of this
experience. The Second, and still more surely the Fifth, sought it
deliberately. The winged Seventh happened upon it while they were in the air.
But their minds were cramped; and all that they could appreciate was their own
small world and their own tragic story. We, the Last Men, have all their zest
in private and in racial life, whether it fares well or ill. We have it at all
times, and we have it in respect of matters inconceivable to lesser minds. We
have it, moreover, intelligently. Knowing well how strange it is to admire evil
along with good, we see clearly the subversiveness of this experience. Even we,
as mere individuals, cannot reconcile our loyalty to the striving spirit of man
with our own divine aloofness. And so, if we were mere individuals, there would
remain conflict in each of us. But in the racial mode each one of us has now
experienced the great elucidation of intellect and of feeling. And though, as
individuals once more, we can never recapture that far-seeing vision, the
obscure memory of it masters us always, and controls all our policies. Among
yourselves, the artist, after his phase of creative insight is passed, and he
is once more a partisan in the struggle for existence, may carry out in detail
the design conceived in his brief period of clarity. He remembers, but no
longer sees the vision. He tries to fashion some perceptible embodiment of the
vanished splendour. So we, living our individual lives, delighting in the
contacts of flesh, the relations of minds, and all the delicate activities of
human culture, co-operating and conflicting in a thousand individual
undertakings and performing each his office in the material maintenance of our
society, see all things as though transfused With light from a source which is
itself no longer revealed.</p>
<p>I have tried to tell you something of the most distinctive characteristics
of our species. You can imagine that the frequent occasions of group mentality,
and even more the rare occasions of race mentality, have a far-reaching effect
on every individual mind, and therefore on our whole social order. Ours is in
fact a society dominated, as no previous society, by a single racial purpose
which is in a sense religious. Not that the individual's private efflorescence
is at all thwarted by the racial purpose. Indeed, far otherwise; for that
purpose demands as the first condition of its fulfillment a wealth of
individual fulfillment, physical and mental. But in each mind of man or woman
the racial purpose presides absolutely; and hence it is the unquestioned motive
of all social policy.</p>
<p>I must not stay to describe in detail this society of ours, in which a
million million citizens, grouped in over a thousand nations, live in perfect
accord without the aid of armies or even a police force. I must not tell of our
much prized social organization, which assigns a unique function to each
citizen, controls the procreation of new citizens of every type in relation to
social need, and yet provides an endless supply of originality. We have no
government and no laws, if by law is meant a stereotyped convention supported
by force, and not to be altered without the aid of cumbersome machinery. Yet,
though our society is in this sense an anarchy, it lives by means of a very
intricate system of customs, some of which are so ancient as to have become
spontaneous taboos, rather than deliberate conventions. It is the business of
those among us who correspond to your lawyers and politicians to study these
customs and suggest improvements. Those suggestions are submitted to no
representative body, but to the whole world-population in "telepathic"
conference. Ours is thus in a sense the most democratic of all societies. Yet
in another sense it is extremely bureaucratic, since it is already some
millions of terrestrial years since any suggestion put forward by the College
of Organizers was rejected or even seriously criticized, so thoroughly do these
social engineers study their material. The only serious possibility of conflict
lies now between the world population as individuals and the same individuals
as group-minds or racial mind. But though in these respects there have formerly
occurred serious conflicts, peculiarly distressing to the individuals who
experienced them, such conflicts are now extremely rare. For, even as mere
individuals, we are learning to trust more and more to the judgment and
dictates of our own super-individual experience.</p>
<p>It is time to grapple with the most difficult part of my whole task.
Somehow, and very briefly, I must give you an idea of that outlook upon
existence which has determined our racial purpose, making it essentially a
religious purpose. This outlook has come to us partly through the work of
individuals in scientific research and philosophic thought, partly through the
influence of our group and racial experiences. You can imagine that it is not
easy to describe this modern vision of the nature of things in any manner
intelligible to those who have not our advantages. There is much in this vision
which will remind you of your mystics; yet between them and us there is far
more difference than similarity, in respect both of the matter and the manner
of our thought. For while they are confident that the cosmos is perfect, we are
sure only that it is very beautiful. While they pass to their conclusion
without the aid of intellect, we have used that staff every step of the way.
Thus, even when in respect of conclusions we agree with your mystics rather
than your plodding intellectuals, in respect of method we applaud most your
intellectuals; for they scorned to deceive themselves with comfortable
fantasies.</p>
<p><b>4. COSMOLOGY</b></p>
<p>We find ourselves living in a vast and boundless, yet finite, order of
spatio-temporal events. And each of us, as the racial mind, has learned that
there are other such orders, other and incommensurable spheres of events,
related to our own neither spatially nor temporally but in another mode of
eternal being. Of the contents of those alien spheres we know almost nothing
but that they are incomprehensible to us, even in our racial mentality.</p>
<p>Within this spatio-temporal sphere of ours we remark what we call the
Beginning and what we call the End. In the Beginning there came into existence,
we know not how, that all-pervading and unimaginably tenuous gas which was the
parent of all material and spiritual existence within time's known span. It was
in fact a very multitudinous yet precisely numbered host. From the crowding
together of this great population into many swarms, arose in time the nebulae,
each of which in its turn condenses as a galaxy, a universe of stars. The stars
have their beginnings and their ends; and for a few moments somewhere in
between their beginnings and their ends a few, very few, may support mind. But
in due course will come the universal End, when all the wreckage of the
galaxies will have drifted together as a single, barren, and seemingly
changeless ash, in the midst of a chaos of unavailing energy.</p>
<p>But the cosmic events which we call the Beginning and the End are final only
in relation to our ignorance of the events which lie beyond them. We know, and
as the racial mind we have apprehended as a clear necessity, that not only
space but time also is boundless, though finite. For in a sense time is cyclic.
After the End, events unknowable will continue to happen during a period much
longer than that which will have passed since the Beginning; but at length
there will recur the identical event which was itself also the Beginning.</p>
<p>Yet though time is cyclic, it is not repetitive; there is no other time
within which it can repeat itself. For time is but an abstraction from the
successiveness of events that pass; and since all events whatsoever form
together a cycle of successiveness, there is nothing constant in relation to
which there can be repetition. And so the succession of events is cyclic, yet
not repetitive. The birth of the all-pervading gas in the so-called Beginning
is not merely <i>similar</i> to another such birth to occur long after us and
long after the cosmic End, so-called; the past Beginning <i>is</i> the future
Beginning.</p>
<p>From the Beginning to the End is but the span from one spoke to the next on
time's great wheel. There is a vaster span, stretching beyond the End and round
to the Beginning. Of the events therein we know nothing, save that there must
be such events.</p>
<p>Everywhere within time's cycle there is endless passage of events. In a
continuous flux, they occur and vanish, yielding to their successors. Yet each
one of them is eternal. Though passage is of their very nature, and without
passage they are nothing, yet they have eternal being. But their passage is no
illusion. They have eternal being, yet eternally they exist with passage. In
our racial mode we see clearly that this is so; but in our individual mode it
remains a mystery. Yet even in our individual mode we must accept both sides of
this mysterious antinomy, as a fiction needed for the rationalizing of our
experience.</p>
<p>The Beginning precedes the End by some hundred million million terrestrial
years, and succeeds it by a period at least nine times longer. In the middle of
the smaller span lies the still shorter period within which alone the living
worlds can occur. And they are very few. One by one they dawn into mentality
and die, successive blooms in life's short summer. Before that season and after
it, even to the Beginning and to the End, and even before the Beginning and
after the End, sleep, utter oblivion. Not before there are stars, and not after
the stars are chilled, can there be life. And then, rarely.</p>
<p>In our own galaxy there have occurred hitherto some twenty thousand worlds
that have conceived life. And of these a few score have attained or surpassed
the mentality of the First Men. But of those that have reached this
development, man has now outstripped the rest, and today man alone
survives.</p>
<p>There are the millions of other galaxies, for instance the Andromedan
island. We have some reason to surmise that in that favoured universe mind may
have attained to insight and power incomparably greater than our own. But all
that we know for certain is that it contains four worlds of high order.</p>
<p>Of the host of other universes that lie within range of our mind-detecting
instruments, none have produced anything comparable with man. But there are
many universes too remote to be estimated.</p>
<p>You may wonder how we have come to detect these remote lives and
intelligences. I can say only that the occurrence of mentality produces certain
minute astronomical effects, to which our instruments are sensitive even at
great distances. These effects increase slightly with the mere mass of living
matter on any astronomical body, but far more with its mental and spiritual
development. Long ago it was the spiritual development of the world-community
of the Fifth Men that dragged the moon from its orbit. And in our own case, so
numerous is our society today, and so greatly developed in mental and spiritual
activities, that only by continuous expense of physical energy can we preserve
the solar system from confusion.</p>
<p>We have another means of detecting minds remote from us in space. We can, of
course, enter into past minds wherever they are, so long as they are
intelligible to us; and we have tried to use this power for the discovery of
remote minded worlds. But in general the experience of such minds is too
different in fibre from our own for us to be able even to detect its existence.
And so our knowledge of minds in other worlds is almost wholly derived from
their physical effects.</p>
<p>We cannot say that nowhere save on those rare bodies called planets does
life ever occur. For we have evidence that in a few of the younger stars there
is life, and even intelligence. How it persists in an incandescent environment
we know not, nor whether it is perhaps the life of the star as a whole, as a
single organism, or the life of many flame-like inhabitants of the star. All
that we know is that no star in its prime has life, and therefore that the
lives of the younger ones are probably doomed.</p>
<p>Again, we know that mind occurs, though very seldom, on a few extremely old
stars, no longer incandescent. What the future of these minds will be, we
cannot tell. Perhaps it is with them, and not with man, that the hope of the
cosmos lies. But at present they are all primitive.</p>
<p>Today nothing anywhere in this galaxy of ours can compare with man in
respect of vision and mental creativeness.</p>
<p>We have, therefore, come to regard our community as of some importance,
especially so in the light of our metaphysics; but I can only hint at our
metaphysical vision of things by means of metaphors which will convey at best a
caricature of that vision.</p>
<p>In the Beginning there was great potency, but little form. And the spirit
slept as the multitude of discrete primordial existents. Thenceforth there has
been a long and fluctuating adventure toward harmonious complexity of form, and
toward the awakening of the spirit into unity, knowledge, delight and
self-expression. And this is the goal of all living, that the cosmos may be
known, and admired, and that it may be crowned with further beauties. Nowhere
and at no time, so far as we can tell, at least within our own galaxy, has the
adventure reached further than in ourselves. And in us, what has been achieved
is but a minute beginning. But it is a real beginning. Man in our day has
gained some depth of insight, some breadth of knowledge, some power of
creation, some faculty of worship. We have looked far afield. We have probed
not altogether superficially into the nature of existence, and have found it
very beautiful, though also terrible. We have created a not inconsiderable
community; and we have wakened together to be the unique spirit of that
community. We had proposed to ourselves a very long and arduous future, which
should culminate, at some time before the End, in the complete achievement of
the spirit's ideal. But now we know that disaster is already near at hand.</p>
<p>When we are in full possession of our faculties, we are not distressed by
this fate. For we know that though our fair community must cease, it has also
indestructible being. We have at least carved into one region of the eternal
real a form which has beauty of no mean order. The great company of diverse and
most lovely men and women in all their subtle relationships, striving with a
single purpose toward the goal which is mind's final goal; the community and
super-individuality of that great host; the beginnings of further insight and
creativeness upon the higher plane--these surely are real achievements--even
though, in the larger view, they are minute achievements.</p>
<p>Yet though we are not at all dismayed by our own extinction, we cannot but
wonder whether or not in the far future some other spirit will fulfil the
cosmic ideal, or whether we ourselves are the modest crown of existence.
Unfortunately, though we can explore the past wherever there are intelligible
minds, we cannot enter into the future. And so in vain we ask, will ever any
spirit awake to gather all spirits into itself, to elicit from the stars their
full flower of beauty, to know all things together, and admire all things
justly?</p>
<p>If in the far future this end will be achieved, it is really achieved even
now; for whenever it occurs, its being is eternal. But on the other hand if it
is indeed achieved eternally, this achievement must be the work of spirits or a
spirit not wholly unlike ourselves, though infinitely greater. And the physical
location of that spirit must lie in the far future.</p>
<p>But if no future spirit will achieve this end before it dies, then, though
the cosmos is indeed very beautiful, it is not perfect.</p>
<p>I said that we regard the cosmos as very beautiful. Yet it is also very
terrible. For ourselves, it is easy to look forward with equanimity to our end,
and even to the end of our admired community; for what we prize most is the
excellent beauty of the cosmos. But there are the myriads of spirits who have
never entered into that vision. They have suffered, and they were not permitted
that consolation. There are, first, the incalculable hosts of lowly creatures
scattered over all the ages in all the minded worlds. Theirs was only a dream
life, and their misery not often poignant; but none the less they are to be
pitied for having missed the more poignant experience in which alone spirit can
find fulfillment. Then there are the intelligent beings, human and otherwise;
the many minded worlds throughout the galaxies, that have struggled into
cognizance, striven for they knew not what, tasted brief delights and lived in
the shadow of pain and death, until at last their life has been crushed out by
careless fate. In our solar system there are the Martians, insanely and
miserably obsessed; the native Venerians, imprisoned in their ocean and
murdered for man's sake; and all the hosts of the forerunning human species. A
few individuals no doubt in every period, and many in certain favoured races,
have lived on the whole happily. And a few have even known something of the
supreme beatitude. But for most, until our modern epoch, thwarting has
outweighed fulfillment; and if actual grief has not preponderated over joy, it
is because, mercifully, the fulfillment that is wholly missed cannot be
conceived.</p>
<p>Our predecessors of the Sixteenth species, oppressed by this vast horror,
undertook a forlorn and seemingly irrational crusade for the rescue of the
tragic past. We see now clearly that their enterprise, though desperate, was
not quite fantastic. For, if ever the cosmic ideal should be realized, even
though for a moment only, then in that time the awakened Soul of All will
embrace within itself all spirits whatever throughout the whole of time's wide
circuit. And so to each one of them, even to the least, it will seem that he
has awakened and discovered himself to be the Soul of All, knowing all things
and rejoicing in all things. And though afterwards, through the inevitable
decay of the stars, this most glorious vision must be lost, suddenly or in the
long-drawn-out defeat of life, yet would the awakened Soul of All have eternal
being, and in it each martyred spirit would have beatitude eternally, though
unknown to itself in its own temporal mode.</p>
<p>It may be that this is the case. If not, then eternally the martyred spirits
are martyred only, and not blest.</p>
<p>We cannot tell which of these possibilities is fact. As individuals we
earnestly desire that the eternal being of things may include this supreme
awakening. This, nothing less than this, has been the remote but ever-present
goal of our practical religious life and of our social policy.</p>
<p>In our racial mode also we have greatly desired this end, but
differently.</p>
<p>Even as individuals, all our desires are tempered by that relentless
admiration of fate which we recognize as the spirit's highest achievement. Even
as individuals, we exult in the issue whether our enterprises succeed or fail.
The pioneer defeated, the lover bereaved and overwhelmed, can find in his
disaster the supreme experience, the dispassionate ecstasy which salutes the
Real as it is and would not change one jot of it. Even as individuals, we can
regard the impending extinction of mankind as a thing superb though tragic.
Strong in the knowledge that the human spirit has already inscribed the cosmos
with indestructible beauty, and that inevitably, whether sooner or later, man's
career must end, we face this too sudden end with laughter in our hearts, and
peace.</p>
<p>But there is the one thought by which, in our individual state, we are still
dismayed, namely that the cosmos enterprise itself may fail; that the full
potentiality of the Real may never find expression; that never, in any stage of
time, the multitudinous and conflicting existents should be organized as the
universal harmonious living body; that the spirit's eternal nature, therefore,
should be discordant, miserably tranced; that the indestructible beauties of
this our sphere of space and time should remain imperfect, and remain, too, not
adequately worshipped.</p>
<p>But in the racial mind this ultimate dread has no place. On those few
occasions when we have awakened racially, we have come to regard with piety
even the possibility of cosmical defeat. For as the racial mind, though in a
manner we earnestly desired the fulfillment of the cosmical ideal, yet we were
no more enslaved to this desire than, as individuals, we are enslaved to our
private desires. For though the racial mind wills this supreme achievement, yet
in the same act it holds itself aloof from it, and from all desire, and all
emotion, save the ecstasy which admires the Real as it is, and accepts its
dark-bright form with joy.</p>
<p>As individuals, therefore, we try to regard the whole cosmic adventure as a
symphony now in progress, which may or may not some day achieve its just
conclusion. Like music, however, the vast biography of the stars is to be
judged not in respect of its final moment merely, but in respect of the
perfection of its whole form; and whether its form as a whole is perfect or
not, we cannot know. Actual music is a pattern of intertwining themes which
evolve and die; and these again are woven of simpler members, which again are
spun of chords and unitary tones. But the music of the spheres is of a
complexity almost infinitely more subtle, and its themes rank above and below
one another in hierarchy beyond hierarchy. None but a God, none but a mind
subtle as the music itself, could hear the whole in all its detail, and grasp
in one act its close-knit individuality, if such it has. Not for any human mind
to say authoritatively, "This is music, wholly," or to say, "This is mere
noise, flecked now and then by shreds of significance."</p>
<p>The music of the spheres is unlike other music not only in respect of its
richness, but also in the nature of its medium. It is a music not merely of
sounds but of souls. Each of its minor themes, each of its chords, each single
tone of it, each tremor of each tone, is in its own degree more than a mere
passive factor in the music; it is a listener, and also a creator. Wherever
there is individuality of form, there is also an individual appreciator and
originator. And the more complex the form, the more percipient and active the
spirit. Thus in every individual factor within the music, the musical
environment of that factor is experienced, vaguely or precisely, erroneously,
or with greater approximation to truth; and, being experienced, it is admired
or loathed, rightly or falsely. And it is influenced. Just as in actual music
each theme is in a manner a determination of its forerunners and followers and
present accompaniment, so in this vaster music each individual factor is itself
a determination of its environment. Also it is a determinant, both of that
which precedes and that which follows.</p>
<p>But whether these manifold interdeterminations are after all haphazard, or,
as in music, controlled in relation to the beauty of the whole, we know not;
nor whether, if this is the case, the beautiful whole of things is the work of
some mind; nor yet whether some mind admires it adequately as a whole of
beauty.</p>
<p>But this we know: that we ourselves, when the spirit is most awake in us,
admire the Real as it is revealed to us, and salute its dark-bright form with
joy.</p>
<h3>CHAPTER XVI. THE LAST OF MAN</h3>
<p><b>1. SENTENCE OF DEATH</b></p>
<p>Ours has been essentially a philosophical age, in fact the supreme age of
philosophy. But a great practical problem has also concerned us. We have had to
prepare for the task of preserving humanity during a most difficult period
which was calculated to being about one hundred million years hence, but might,
in certain circumstances, be sprung upon us at very short notice. Long ago the
human inhabitants of Venus believed that already in their day the sun was about
to enter the "white dwarf" phase, and that the time would therefore soon come
when their world would be frost-bound. This calculation was unduly pessimistic;
but we know now that, even allowing for the slight delay caused by the great
collision, the solar collapse must begin at some date astronomically not very
distant. We had planned that during the comparatively brief period of the
actual shrinkage, we would move our planet steadily nearer to the sun, until
finally it should settle in the narrowest possible orbit.</p>
<p>Man would then be comfortably placed for a very long period. But in the
fullness of time there would come a far more serious crisis. The sun would
continue to cool, and at last man would no longer be able to live by means of
solar radiation. It would become necessary to annihilate matter to supply the
deficiency. The other planets might be used for this purpose, and possibly the
sun itself. Or, given the sustenance for so long a voyage, man might boldly
project his planet into the neighbourhood of some younger star. Thenceforth,
perhaps, he might operate upon a far grander scale. He might explore and
colonize all suitable worlds in every corner of the galaxy, and organize
himself as a vast community of minded worlds. Even (so we dreamed) he might
achieve intercourse with other galaxies. It did not seem impossible that man
himself was the germ of the world-soul, which, we still hope, is destined to
awake for a while before the universal decline, and to crown the eternal cosmos
with its due of knowledge and admiration, fleeting yet eternal. We dared to
think that in some far distant epoch the human spirit, clad in all wisdom,
power, and delight, might look back upon our primitive age with a certain
respect; no doubt with pity also and amusement, but none the less with
admiration for the spirit in us, still only half awake, and struggling against
great disabilities. In such a mood, half pity, half admiration, we ourselves
look back upon the primitive mankinds.</p>
<p>Our prospect has now suddenly and completely changed, for astronomers have
made a startling discovery, which assigns to man a speedy end. His existence
has ever been precarious. At any stage of his career he might easily have been
exterminated by some slight alteration of his chemical environment, by a more
than usually malignant microbe, by a radical change of climate, or by the
manifold effects of his own folly. Twice already he has been almost destroyed
by astronomical events. How easily might it happen that the solar system, now
rushing through a somewhat more crowded region of the galaxy, should become
entangled with, or actually strike, a major astronomical body, and be
destroyed. But fate, as it turns out, has a more surprising end in store for
man.</p>
<p>Not long ago an unexpected alteration was observed to be taking place in a
near star. Through no discoverable cause, it began to change from white to
violet, and increase in brightness. Already it has attained such extravagant
brilliance that, though its actual disk remains a mere point in our sky, its
dazzling purple radiance illuminates our nocturnal landscapes with hideous
beauty. Our astronomers have ascertained that this is no ordinary "nova," that
it is not one of those stars addicted to paroxysms of brilliance. It is
something unprecedented, a normal star suffering from a unique disease, a
fantastic acceleration of its vital process, a riotous squandering of the
energy which should have remained locked within its substance for aeons. At the
present rate it will be reduced either to an inert cinder or to actual
annihilation in a few thousand years. This extraordinary event may possibly
have been produced by unwise tamperings on the part of intelligent beings in
the star's neighbourhood. But, indeed, since all matter at very high
temperature is in a state of unstable equilibrium, the cause may have been
merely some conjunction of natural circumstances.</p>
<p>The event was first regarded simply as an intriguing spectacle. But further
study roused a more serious interest. Our own planet, and therefore the sun
also, was suffering a continuous and increasing bombardment of ethereal
vibrations, most of which were of incredibly high frequency, and of unknown
potentiality. What would be their effect upon the sun? After some centuries,
certain astronomical bodies in the neighbourhood of the deranged star were seen
to be infected with its disorder. Their fever increased the splendour of our
night sky, but it also confirmed our fears. We still hoped that the sun might
prove too distant to be seriously influenced, but careful analysis now showed
that this hope must be abandoned. The sun's remoteness might cause a delay of
some thousands of years before the cumulative effects of the bombardment could
start the disintegration; but sooner or later the sun itself must be infected.
Probably within thirty thousand years life will be impossible anywhere within a
vast radius of the sun, so vast a radius that it is quite impossible to propel
our planet away fast enough to escape before the storm can catch us.</p>
<p><b>2. BEHAVIOUR OF THE CONDEMNED</b></p>
<p>The discovery of this doom kindled in us unfamiliar emotions. Hitherto
humanity had seemed to be destined for a very long future, and the individual
himself had been accustomed to look forward to very many thousands of years of
personal life, ending in voluntary sleep. We had of course often conceived, and
even savoured in imagination, the sudden destruction of our world. But now we
faced it as a fact. Outwardly every one behaved with perfect serenity, but
inwardly every mind was in turmoil. Not that there was any question of our
falling into panic or despair, for in this crisis our native detachment stood
us in good stead. But inevitably some time passed before our minds became
properly adjusted to the new prospect, before we could see our fate outlined
clearly and beautifully against the cosmic background.</p>
<p>Presently, however, we learned to contemplate the whole great saga of man as
a completed work of art, and to admire it no less for its sudden and tragic end
than for the promise in it which was not to be fulfilled. Grief was now
transfigured wholly into ecstasy. Defeat, which had oppressed us with a sense
of man's impotence and littleness among the stars, brought us into a new
sympathy and reverence for all those myriads of beings in the past out of whose
obscure strivings we had been born. We saw the most brilliant of our own race
and the lowliest of our prehuman forerunners as essentially spirits of equal
excellence, though cast in diverse circumstances. When we looked round on the
heavens, and at the violet splendour which was to destroy us, we were filled
with awe and pity, awe for the inconceivable potentiality of this bright host,
pity for its self-thwarting effort to fulfil itself as the universal
spirit.</p>
<p>At this stage it seemed that there was nothing left for us to do but to
crowd as much excellence as possible into our remaining life, and meet our end
in the noblest manner. But now there came upon us once more the rare experience
of racial mentality. For a whole Neptunian year every individual lived in an
enraptured trance, in which, as the racial mind, he or she resolved many
ancient mysteries and saluted many unexpected beauties. This ineffable
experience, lived through under the shadow of death, was the flower of man's
whole being. But I can tell nothing of it, save that when it was over we
possessed, even as individuals, a new peace, in which, strangely but
harmoniously, were blended grief, exaltation, and god-like laughter.</p>
<p>In consequence of this racial experience we found ourselves faced with two
tasks which had not before been contemplated. The one referred to the future,
the other to the past.</p>
<p>In respect of the future, we are now setting about the forlorn task of
disseminating among the stars the seeds of a new humanity. For this purpose we
shall make use of the pressure of radiation from the sun, and chiefly the
extravagantly potent radiation that will later be available. We are hoping to
devise extremely minute electro-magnetic "wave-systems," akin to normal protons
and electrons, which will be individually capable of sailing forward upon the
hurricane of solar radiation at a speed not wholly incomparable with the speed
of light itself. This is a difficult task. But, further, these units must be so
cunningly inter-related that, in favourable conditions, they may tend to
combine to form spores of life, and to develop, not indeed into human beings,
but into lowly organisms with a definite evolutionary bias toward the
essentials of human nature. These objects we shall project from beyond our
atmosphere in immense quantities at certain points of our planet's orbit, so
that solar radiation may carry them toward the most promising regions of the
galaxy. The chance that any of them will survive to reach their destination is
small, and still smaller the chance that any of them will find a suitable
environment. But if any of this human seed should fall upon good ground, it
will embark, we hope, upon a somewhat rapid biological evolution, and produce
in due season whatever complex organic forms are possible in its environment.
It will have a very real physiological bias toward the evolution of
intelligence. Indeed it will have a much greater bias in that direction than
occurred on the Earth in those sub-vital atomic groupings from which
terrestrial life eventually sprang.</p>
<p>It is just conceivable, then, that by extremely good fortune man may still
influence the future of this galaxy, not directly but through his creature. But
in the vast music of existence the actual theme of mankind now ceases for ever.
Finished, the long reiterations of man's history; defeated, the whole proud
enterprise of his maturity. The stored experience of many mankinds must sink
into oblivion, and today's wisdom must vanish.</p>
<p>The other task which occupies us, that which relates to the past, is one
which may very well seem to you nonsensical.</p>
<p>We have long been able to enter into past minds and participate in their
experience. Hitherto we have been passive spectators merely, but recently we
have acquired the power of influencing past minds. This seems an impossibility;
for a past event is what it is, and how can it conceivably be altered at a
subsequent date, even in the minutest respect?</p>
<p>Now it is true that past events are what they are, irrevocably; but in
certain cases some feature of a past event may depend on an event in the far
future. The past event would never have been as it actually was (and is,
eternally), if there had not been going to be a certain future event, which,
though not contemporaneous with the past event, influences it directly in the
sphere of eternal being. The passage of events is real, and time is the
successiveness of passing events; but though events have passage, they have
also eternal being. And in certain rare cases mental events far separated in
time determine one another directly by way of eternity.</p>
<p>Our own minds have often been profoundly influenced by direct inspection of
past minds; and now we find that certain events of certain past minds are
determined by present events in our own present minds. No doubt there are some
past mental events which are what they are by virtue of mental processes which
we <i>shall</i> perform but have not yet performed.</p>
<p>Our historians and psychologists, engaged on direct inspection of past
minds, had often complained of certain "singular" points in past minds, where
the ordinary laws of psychology fail to give a full explanation of the course
of mental events; where, in fact, some wholly unknown influence seemed to be at
work. Later it was found that, in some cases at least, this disturbance of the
ordinary principles of psychology corresponded with certain thoughts or desires
in the mind of the observer, living in our own age. Of course, only such
matters as could have significance to the past mind could influence it at all.
Thoughts and desires of ours which have no meaning to the particular past
individual fail to enter into his experience. New ideas and new values are only
to be introduced by arranging familiar matter so that it may gain a new
significance. Nevertheless we now found ourselves in possession of an amazing
power of communicating with the past, and contributing to its thought and
action, though of course we could not <i>alter</i> it.</p>
<p>But, it may he asked, what if, in respect of a particular "singularity" in
some past mind, we do not, after all, choose to provide the necessary influence
to account for it? The question is meaningless. There is no possibility that we
should not choose to influence those past minds which are, as a matter of fact,
dependent on our influence. For it is in the sphere of eternity (wherein alone
we meet past minds), that we really make this free choice. And in the sphere of
time, though the choosing has relations with our modern age, and may be said to
occur in that age, it also has relations with the past mind, and may be said to
have occurred also long ago.</p>
<p>There are in some past minds singularities which are not the product of any
influence that we have exerted today. Some of these singularities, no doubt, we
shall ourselves produce on some occasion before our destruction. But it may be
that some are due to an influence other than ours, perhaps to beings which, by
good fortune, may spring long hence from our forlorn seminal enterprise; or
they may be due perhaps to the cosmic mind, whose future occurrence and eternal
existence we earnestly desire. However that may be, there are a few remarkable
minds, scattered up and down past ages and even in the most primitive human
races, which suggest an influence other than our own. They are so "singular" in
one respect or another, that we cannot give a perfectly clear psychological
account of them in terms of the past only; and yet we ourselves are not the
instigators of their singularity. Your Jesus, your Socrates, your Gautama, show
traces of this uniqueness. But the most original of all were too eccentric to
have any influence on their contemporaries. It is possible that in ourselves
also there are "singularities" which cannot be accounted for wholly in terms of
ordinary biological and psychological laws. If we could prove that this is the
case, we should have very definite evidence of the occurrence of a high order
of mentality somewhere in the future, and therefore of its eternal existence.
But hitherto this problem has proved too subtle for us, even in the racial
mode. It may be that the mere fact that we have succeeded in attaining racial
mentality involves some remote future influence. It is even conceivable that
every creative advance that any mind has ever made involves unwitting
co-operation with the cosmic mind which, perhaps, will awake at some date
before the End.</p>
<p>We have two methods of influencing the past through past individuals; for we
can operate either upon minds of great originality and power, or upon any
average individual whose circumstances happen to suit our purpose. In original
minds we can only suggest some very vague intuition, which is then "worked up"
by the individual himself into some form very different from that which we
intended, but very potent as a factor in the culture of his age. Average minds,
on the other hand, we can use as passive instruments for the conveyance of
detailed ideas. But in such cases the individual is incapable of working up the
material into a great and potent form, suited to his age.</p>
<p>But what is it, you may ask, that we seek to contribute to the past? We seek
to afford intuitions of truth and of value, which, though easy to us from our
point of vantage, would be impossible to the unaided past. We seek to help the
past to make the best of itself, just as one man may help another. We seek to
direct the attention of past individuals and past races to truths and beauties
which, though implicit in their experience, would otherwise be overlooked.</p>
<p>We seek to do this for two reasons. Entering into past minds, we become
perfectly acquainted with them, and cannot but love them; and so we desire to
help them. By influencing selected individuals, we seek to influence indirectly
great multitudes. But our second motive is very different. We see the career of
Man in his successive planetary homes as a process of very great beauty. It is
far indeed from the perfect; but it is very beautiful, with the beauty of
tragic art. Now it turns out that this beautiful thing entails our operation at
various points in the past. Therefore we will to operate.</p>
<p>Unfortunately our first inexperienced efforts were disastrous. Many of the
fatuities which primitive minds in all ages have been prone to attribute to the
influence of disembodied spirits, whether deities, fiends, or the dead, are but
the gibberish which resulted from our earliest experiments. And this book, so
admirable in our conception, has issued from the brain of the writer, your
contemporary, in such disorder as to be mostly rubbish.</p>
<p>We are concerned with the past not only in so far as we make very rare
contributions to it, but chiefly in two other manners.</p>
<p>First, we are engaged upon the great enterprise of becoming lovingly
acquainted with the past, the human past, in every detail. This is, so to
speak, our supreme act of filial piety. When one being comes to know and love
another, a new and beautiful thing is created, namely the love. The cosmos is
thus far and at that date enhanced. We seek then to know and love every past
mind that we can enter. In most cases we can know them with far more
understanding than they can know themselves. Not the least of them, not the
worst of them, shall be left out of this great work of understanding and
admiration.</p>
<p>There is another manner in which we are concerned with the human past. We
need its help. For we, who are triumphantly reconciled to our fate, are under
obligation to devote our last energies not to ecstatic contemplation but to a
forlorn and most uncongenial task, the dissemination. This task is almost
intolerably repugnant to us. Gladly would we spend our last days in
embellishing our community and our culture, and in pious exploration of the
past. But it is incumbent on us, who are by nature artists and philosophers, to
direct the whole attention of our world upon the arid labour of designing an
artificial human seed, producing it in immense quantities, and projecting it
among the stars. If there is to be any possibility of success, we must
undertake a very lengthy program of physical research, and finally organize a
world-wide system of manufacture. The work will not be completed until our
physical constitution is already being undermined, and the disintegration of
our community has already begun. Now we could never fulfil this policy without
a zealous conviction of its importance. Here it is that the past can help us.
We, who have now learnt so thoroughly the supreme art of ecstatic fatalism, go
humbly to the past to learn over again that other supreme achievement of the
spirit, loyalty to the forces of life embattled against the forces of death.
Wandering among the heroic and often forlorn ventures of the past, we are fired
once more with primitive zeal. Thus, when we return to our own world, we are
able, even while we preserve in our hearts the peace that passeth
understanding, to struggle as though we cared only for victory.</p>
<p><b>3. EPILOGUE</b></p>
<p>I am speaking to you now from a period about twenty thousand terrestrial
years after the date at which the whole preceding part of this book was
communicated. It has become very difficult to reach you, and still more
difficult to speak to you; for already the Last Men are not the men they
were.</p>
<p>Our two great undertakings are still unfinished. Much of the human past
remains imperfectly explored, and the projection of the seed is scarcely begun.
That enterprise has proved far more difficult than was expected. Only within
the last few years have we succeeded in designing an artificial human dust
capable of being carried forward on the sun's radiation, hardy enough to endure
the conditions of a trans-galactic voyage of many millions of years, and yet
intricate enough to bear the potentiality of life and of spiritual development.
We are now preparing to manufacture this seminal matter in great quantities,
and to cast it into space at suitable points on the planet's orbit.</p>
<p>Some centuries have now passed since the sun began to show the first
symptoms of disintegration, namely a slight change of colour toward the blue,
followed by a definite increase of brightness and heat. Today, when he pierces
the ever-thickening cloud, he smites us with an intolerable steely brilliance
which destroys the sight of anyone foolish enough to face it. Even in the
cloudy weather which is now normal, the eye is wounded by the fierce violet
glare. Eye-troubles afflict us all, in spite of the special glasses which have
been designed to protect us. The mere heat, too, is already destructive. We are
forcing our planet outward from its old orbit in an ever-widening spiral; but,
do what we will, we cannot prevent the climate from becoming more and more
deadly, even at the poles. The intervening regions have already been deserted.
Evaporation of the equatorial oceans has thrown the whole atmosphere into
tumult, so that even at the poles we are tormented by hot wet hurricanes and
incredible electric storms. These have already shattered most of our great
buildings, sometimes burying a whole teeming province under an avalanche of
tumbled vitreous crags.</p>
<p>Our two polar communities at first managed to maintain radio communication;
but it is now some time since we of the south received news of the more
distressed north. Even with us the situation is already desperate. We had
recently established some hundreds of stations for the dissemination, but less
than a score have been able to operate. This failure is due mainly to an
increasing lack of personnel. The deluge of fantastic solar radiation has had
disastrous effect on the human organism. Epidemics of a malignant tumour, which
medical science has failed to conquer, have reduced the southern people to a
mere remnant, and this in spite of the migration of the tropical races into the
Antarctic. Each of us, moreover, is but the wreckage of his former self. The
higher mental functions, attained only in the most developed human species, are
already lost or disordered, through the breakdown of their special tissues. Not
only has the racial mind vanished, but the sexual groups have lost their mental
unity. Three of the sub-sexes have already been exterminated by derangement of
their chemical nature. Glandular troubles, indeed, have unhinged many of us
with anxieties and loathings which we cannot conquer, though we know them to be
unreasonable. Even the normal power of "telepathic" communication has become so
unreliable that we have been compelled to fall back upon the archaic practice
of vocal symbolism. Exploration of the past is now confined to specialists, and
is a dangerous profession, which may lead to disorders of temporal
experience.</p>
<p>Degeneration of the higher neural centres has also brought about in us a far
more serious and deep-seated trouble, namely a general spiritual degradation
which would formerly have seemed impossible, so confident were we of our
integrity. The perfectly dispassionate will had been for many millions of years
universal among us, and the corner-stone of our whole society and culture. We
had almost forgotten that it has a physiological basis, and that if that basis
were undermined, we might no longer be capable of rational conduct. But,
drenched for some thousands of years by the unique stellar radiation, we have
gradually lost not only the ecstasy of dispassionate worship, but even the
capacity for normal disinterested behaviour. Every one is now liable to an
irrational bias in favour of himself as a private person, as against his
fellows. Personal envy, uncharitableness, even murder and gratuitous cruelty,
formerly unknown amongst us, are now becoming common. At first when men began
to notice in themselves these archaic impulses, they crushed them with amused
contempt. But as the highest nerve centres fell further into decay, the brute
in us began to be ever more unruly, and the human more uncertain. Rational
conduct was henceforth to be achieved only after an exhausting and degrading
"moral struggle," instead of spontaneously and fluently. Nay, worse,
increasingly often the struggle ended not in victory but defeat. Imagine then,
the terror and disgust that gripped us when we found ourselves one and all
condemned to a desperate struggle against impulses which we had been accustomed
to regard as insane. It is distressing enough to know that each one of us might
at any moment, merely to help some dear individual or other, betray his supreme
duty toward the dissemination; but it is harrowing to discover ourselves
sometimes so far sunk as to be incapable even of common loving-kindness toward
our neighbours. For a man to favour himself against his friend or beloved, even
in the slightest respect, was formerly unknown. But today many of us are
haunted by the look of amazed horror and pity in the eyes of an injured
friend.</p>
<p>In the early stages of our trouble lunatic asylums were founded, but they
soon became over-crowded and a burden on a stricken community. The insane were
then killed. But it became clear that by former standards we were all insane.
No man now can trust himself to behave reasonably.</p>
<p>And, of course, we cannot trust each other. Partly through the prevalent
irrationality of desire, and partly through the misunderstandings which have
come with the loss of "telepathic" communication, we have been plunged into all
manner of discords. A political constitution and system of laws had to be
devised, but they seem to have increased our troubles. Order of a kind is
maintained by an over-worked police force. But this is in the hands of the
professional organizers, who have now all the vices of bureaucracy. It was
largely through their folly that two of the antarctic nations broke into social
revolution, and are now preparing to meet the armament which an insane
world-government is devising for their destruction. Meanwhile, through the
break-down of the economic order, and the impossibility of reaching the
food-factories on Jupiter, starvation is added to our troubles, and has
afforded to certain ingenious lunatics the opportunity of trading at the
expense of others.</p>
<p>All this folly in a doomed world, and in a community that was yesterday the
very flower of a galaxy! Those of us who still care for the life of the spirit
are tempted to regret that mankind did not choose decent suicide before ever
the putrescence began. But indeed this could not be. The task that was
undertaken had to be completed. For the Scattering of the Seed has come to be
for every one of us the supreme religious duty. Even those who continually sin
against it recognize this as the last office of man. It was for this that we
outstayed our time, and must watch ourselves decline from spiritual estate into
that brutishness from which man has so seldom freed himself.</p>
<p>Yet why do we persist in the forlorn effort? Even if by good luck the seed
should take root somewhere and thrive, there will surely come an end to its
adventure, if not swiftly in fire, then in the ultimate battle of life against
encroaching frost. Our labour will at best sow for death an ampler harvest.
There seems no rational defence of it, unless it be rational to carry out
blindly a purpose conceived in a former and more enlightened state.</p>
<p>But we cannot feel sure that we really were more enlightened. We look back
now at our former selves, with wonder, but also with incomprehension and
misgiving. We try to recall the glory that seemed to be revealed to each of us
in the racial mind, but we remember almost nothing of it. We cannot rise even
to that more homely beatitude which was once within the reach of the unaided
individual, that serenity which, it seemed, should be the spirit's answer to
every tragic event. It is gone from us. It is not only impossible but
inconceivable. We now see our private distresses and the public calamity as
merely hideous. That after so long a struggle into maturity man should be
roasted alive like a trapped mouse, for the entertainment of a lunatic! How can
any beauty lie in that?</p>
<p>But this is not our last word to you. For though we have fallen, there is
still something in us left over from the time that is passed. We have become
blind and weak; but the knowledge that we are so has forced us to a great
effort. Those of us who have not already sunk too far have formed themselves
into a brotherhood for mutual strengthening, so that the true human spirit may
be maintained a little longer, until the seed has been well sown, and death be
permissible. We call ourselves the Brotherhood of the Condemned. We seek to be
faithful to one another, and to our common undertaking, and to the vision which
is no longer revealed. We are vowed to the comforting of all distressed persons
who are not yet permitted death. We are vowed also to the dissemination. And we
are vowed to keep the spirit bright until the end.</p>
<p>Now and again we meet together in little groups or great companies to
hearten ourselves with one another's presence. Sometimes on these occasions we
can but sit in silence, groping for consolation and for strength. Sometimes the
spoken word flickers hither and thither amongst us, shedding a brief light but
little warmth to the soul that lies freezing in a torrid world.</p>
<p>But there is among us one, moving from place to place and company to
company, whose voice all long to hear. He is young, the last born of the Last
Men; for he was the latest to be conceived before we learned man's doom, and
put an end to all conceiving. Being the latest, he is also the noblest. Not him
alone, but all his generation, we salute, and look to for strength; but he, the
youngest, is different from the rest. In him the spirit, which is but the flesh
awakened into spirituality, has power to withstand the tempest of solar energy
longer than the rest of us. It is as though the sun itself were eclipsed by
this spirit's brightness. It is as though in him at last, and for a day only,
man's promise were fulfilled. For though, like others, he suffers in the flesh,
he is above his suffering. And though more than the rest of us he feels the
suffering of others, he is above his pity. In his comforting there is a strange
sweet raillery which can persuade the sufferer to smile at his own pain. When
this youngest brother of ours contemplates with us our dying world and the
frustration of all man's striving, he is not, like us, dismayed, but quiet. In
the presence of such quietness despair wakens into peace. By his reasonable
speech, almost by the mere sound of his voice, our eyes are opened, and our
hearts mysteriously filled with exultation. Yet often his words are grave.</p>
<p>Let his words, not mine, close this story:</p>
<p>Great are the stars, and man is of no account to them. But man is a fair
spirit, whom a star conceived and a star kills. He is greater than those bright
blind companies. For though in them there is incalculable potentiality, in him
there is achievement, small, but actual. Too soon, seemingly, he comes to his
end. But when he is done he will not be nothing, not as though he had never
been; for he is eternally a beauty in the eternal form of things.</p>
<p>Man was winged hopefully. He had in him to go further than this short
flight, now ending. He proposed even that he should become the Flower of All
Things, and that he should learn to be the All-Knowing, the All-Admiring.
Instead, he is to be destroyed. He is only a fledgling caught in a bush-fire.
He is very small, very simple, very little capable of insight. His knowledge of
the great orb of things is but a fledgling's knowledge. His admiration is a
nestling's admiration for the things kindly to his own small nature. He
delights only in food and the food-announcing call. The music of the spheres
passes over him, through him, and is not heard.</p>
<p>Yet it has used him. And now it uses his destruction. Great, and terrible,
and very beautiful is the Whole; and for man the best is that the Whole should
use him.</p>
<p>But does it really use him? Is the beauty of the Whole really enhanced by
our agony? And is the Whole really beautiful? And what is beauty? Throughout
all his existence man has been striving to hear the music of the spheres, and
has seemed to himself once and again to catch some phrase of it, or even a hint
of the whole form of it. Yet he can never be sure that he has truly heard it,
nor even that there is any such perfect music at all to be heard. Inevitably
so, for if it exists, it is not for him in his littleness.</p>
<p>But one thing is certain. Man himself, at the very least, is music, a brave
theme that makes music also of its vast accompaniment, its matrix of storms and
stars. Man himself in his degree is eternally a beauty in the eternal form of
things. It is very good to have been man. And so we may go forward together
with laughter in our hearts, and peace, thankful for the past, and for our own
courage. For we shall make after all a fair conclusion to this brief music that
is man.</p>
<hr>
<h2>THE END</h2>


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